


And judgment taught us that our hearts were wrong (but they're the ones that we'll look down upon)

by ElixirBB



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Angst, Dream Sex, F/M, Fighting, Fingering, Force Bond, Inappropriate Use of the Force, Let's be honest, Mutual Attraction, Mutual Masturbation, Oral Sex, Pining, Rey is a Kenobi theory, Romeo and Juliet in space, Smut, Some Cursing, Some pain, Torture, Training, Vaginal Sex, because here be angst and pain, but like super vague, heed the warnings okay?, honestly this thing got to be way to out of hand, hope you all enjoy!, mind torture, mind-sharing, phantom touching, prophecies have some power, saber fighting, shared pain, snoke is a bastard, some vague dub-con, soulmates without really knowing they're soulmates, there will be some violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-05-29
Updated: 2016-06-29
Packaged: 2018-07-11 00:42:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 26,786
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7017271
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ElixirBB/pseuds/ElixirBB
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rey falls in love with Kylo Ren. </p>
<p>Not Ben Solo. Kylo Ren.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Truth be told I’ve tried my best (but the cost was so much more than I could bear)

**Author's Note:**

> So....I just don't think you guys are going to get rid of me. Here's my second offering to the Reylo fandom and I hope you guys enjoy it!   
> Story title is from the song 'Sinners' by Lauren Aqulina. Chapter title is taken from 'Fallen' by Sarah McLachlan.
> 
> Just a heads up:   
> Sentences in italics is Rey's thoughts   
> 'blah blah in italics' Kylo in the Force Bond  
> 'blah blah blah' Rey in the Force Bond  
> (huge chunks in italics) Flashbacks
> 
> Thank you all so so much! Hope you all enjoy!

“Master.” She says and for the first time since she found him, her voice is hesitant, as if everything she’s learned will be all for naught and the little voice inside her head, the voice that she doesn’t completely block out because on the coldest of nights, it’s the _only_ thing keeping her company, is for once, silent. She doesn’t dare try to close her eyes, knowing that if she does she’ll remember what he looks like, she’ll remember the angular face framing prominent facial features and the eyes that bore into hers in the interrogation room that started this entire maelstrom around them and inside of them.

 

(She hasn’t told Master Luke the extent of their bond, though she thinks he can feel it. She thinks she can sense his disappointment because she is a Padawan [she is, for all intents and purposes, _his_ Padawan but the voice, the familiar voice that drives her equal parts furious and provides her forbidden comfort, questions _‘are you? are you truly?’_ ] and she shouldn’t be keeping secrets from her Master but this… _this_ belongs to no one but herself and the voice inside of her head that she doesn’t even deign to name aloud because she knows if she does, she will be lost, lost, _lost_ to the abyss that awaits her.)

 

The salt from the sea is heavy in the air on this day, the day that she knows will be her reckoning. It chokes her from the inside out, heavy on her chest and dense in her lungs that she struggles to take deep breaths. The wind isn’t helping, the chill of the air seeping into her bones and the spray from the sea dampening her robes, her hair matted and wisps of it grazing her face, like a soft caress and for one terrible, horrible moment, she thinks it _is._ She can almost feel phantom fingertips trailing across her cheekbones and nose, counting the dots that adorn her skin and she slams the doors to her mind shut, the act of suddenly and violently rendering it silent overwhelms her and if she were any other person, she would have stumbled in her place. But her feet hold her still, her toes curling into her boots, rooting her to the ground.

 

“Do you think I am truly ready?”

 

Master Luke turns his head and stares at her, eyes seeing but _not_ seeing everything and she wants to shake him, ask him why he has not asked her about the voice in her head. She wants to ask him why he has not asked her about the violence that clouds her eyes and the voice that sometimes comes out of her in pure anger and unadulterated rage, that leaves her teetering on the edge. She wants to ask him, beg him, plead with him to tell her about his nephew who deterred from the path he originally set out on (and it’s in those moments that she knows that wish isn’t _hers_ , that her mind isn’t hers and the pleas that are so silent to the outside world are a roar inside of her head, consuming her, haunting her with a sort of melancholy that she can only relate back to _him_ ) but her Master never tells her things she doesn’t ask for and the anger and betrayal reverberates in her veins so fiercely, it almost chokes her.

 

(And Master Luke will never ask the questions that steer him from the path of the Jedi, never give in to anything that isn’t strictly relating to the code and Rey’s mind hollows and her chest clenches in sympathy for a man who knows no mercy and yet continues to rail against the confines of her mind.)

 

Her Master continues to stare at her, as if studying her, as if dissecting every blink of her eyes, every twitch of her fingers. He stares at her until he sucks in a breath, barely noticeable to anyone else, but Rey _sees_ it. She sees it and cocks her head, wanting to question it, but in the same regard that he doesn’t question her, she can’t seem to open her mouth and question him.

 

“A true Jedi,” Master Luke starts, his eyes drifting to the clouds of dark grey that have been forming above and around them for days, and she can feel it in the air, the cackle of electricity, the foreshadowing of something unforeseen and something dark. _A storm is coming_ , she thinks. “Never questions if they are ready, they just _are_.” He’s silent and she’s frustrated because he hasn’t answered the only question she’s asked him and not for the first time, she think she isn’t _meant for this_ , isn’t meant for the path of the serene Jedi (and the voice in her head breaks through the walls and doors, as it often does and the whispers trickle in her mind, ‘ _you’re right, you’re not a Jedi. You’re something more’_ and she shoves it out, fighting against it’s restraints and she can hear the echoing of a shadowed laugh in her mind and she mentally recoils.) “The question, then, lies in whether _you_ believe _you_ are ready.”

 

_I’m not_ , she thinks wildly, breath catching in her lungs and her mind flies to the memories that no one but she and _him_ have access to. _I’m not ready._

 

She’s not trying to be modest, she’s not trying to eke out compliments that she knows will never come, but she’s _not_ ready. She can feel in her bones as much as she feels the Force gather in the coming storm, heading straight for them. There is something in the pit of her stomach telling her that everything is changing, that the planets are tilting, shifting and the fates are rearranging themselves for the oncoming war and _what is war without casualties_?

 

_‘You will not be my casualty,’_ his voice (and it is _his_ , as much as she tries to disassociate from him, as much as she tries to push him away, it always comes back to his voice in her mind, in her dreams, leaving her gasping and panting, trying to grab hold of the dreams that fade into the recess of her mind, in a place she can never seem to find but is always within his reach and what does that say about _her_? That even in _this_ , even in _her own mind_ , she has _no control_ ) tells her. It’s still mechanical and she knows that he’s wearing that hideous mask that has seen the end of hundreds and thousands of lives. And she hates (hates, hates, _hates_ ) that despite all the walls and shields she puts up, he easily crumbles them.

 

‘Then what will I be?’ She asks him sharply.

 

There is silence and then when he does speak, it’s almost with a lilt of humor, _‘my guest.’_

 

‘I’m going to kill you,’ she promises, lips trembling and body shaking.

 

_‘Will you really?’_

 

She pushes him out, blinking rapidly. _No_ , the thought comes to her unbidden and there is a clenching in her chest at the thought of his death at her hands and she doesn’t _want_ to bloody her hands with his blood. She doesn’t _want_ to be the last thing he sees when he dies. ‘You don’t have to be my enemy,’ she says softly.

 

_‘Yes,’_ he replies just as softly as his helmet will allow him to, _‘I do.’_

 

Rey blinks and looks at Master Luke who is frowning, eyes clouded over just like the sky above them. “Yes.” She says aloud to him. “I’m…I’m ready.”

 

_I’m not. I’m not ready._

 

(Rey isn’t sure if the thought is hers or his.)

 

Master Luke nods and there is maybe a hint of a smile on his face but it’s sad and resigned and she wants to know what he knows but will never cross the line to actually ask him. He looks at her like he could be proud; he looks at her like he’s worried.

 

Mostly though, he looks at her like he knows she’s not ready but he’s sending her into uncertain battle that needs to be fought anyways.

 

Rey turns her head away from him, eyes locking onto the rolling sea as the wind picks up and the air continues to cackle with electricity. _It’s befitting_ , she thinks, that everything around her is rebelling against the decisions made for her, for him, for _them_.

 

“May the Force be with you.” Master Luke tells her softly, hand patting her shoulder as he steps to the side and allows her a clear view of the ramp of the Falcon.

 

She wishes that Finn were here. She wishes she could see him one last time, hug him one last time, laugh with him one last time. But she said her goodbyes the night before, speaking to the General who looked at her with such sadness and such hope that it tore her into bits and pieces. She spoke to Finn who tried to make her laugh despite his own tears streaming down his face, and he made her promise that she would come back, _come back, Rey. Be the Jedi we know you to be and come back victorious_. And she knows what he wants. He wants Kylo Ren’s head on a platter and she doesn’t even have to be experienced in the Force to _see it in his eyes_. She looks away from him then, wondering if he can sense her hesitancy.

 

Because not even _Finn_ knows of her conversations, of her dreams that not even she can remember.

 

She says her goodbyes to Poe and BB-8, the former quietly promising that he’ll take care of Finn and the latter beeping that it will miss her.

 

But no one but her Master is on Ahch-To with her, as she boards the _Falcon_ that was promised to her but not rightfully hers at all. She looks down at the saber tucked into the clip on her waist and the quarterstaff that she still carries everywhere and she wonders if anything in her life, is rightfully hers.

 

She stops in front of Master Luke and nods at him once. “And you.” She replies.

 

_(And you.)_  

* * *

 

_(The first time she realizes that her mind is not hers, is her first night on Ahch-To. Master Luke started her off meditating and she never knew clearing your mind could be as exhausting as it is, so she climbs into her little hut that Master Luke and Chewie helped build in the hours she was meditating, only vaguely recognizing that her Master would sometimes lead her and would sometimes right her on her path when everything around her proved to be distracting._

_So, with an exhausted body and mind, she crawls into her hut, an overwhelming sense of nostalgia tearing at her when she thinks of her old AT-AT but she closes her eyes anyways and breathes in deeply, trying to center her mind and sleep when a sudden pain explodes in her body._

_Her mouth is open in a silent scream, back arching and her hands scramble for purchase on the ground, on her makeshift mattress, on her body where a phantom wound seems to be spreading throughout her veins and for a few minutes all she can think is that she is_ dying _and the thought ‘I deserve this. I have failed you’ comes floating in her mind and in her distorted pain she frowns, recognizing the voice as not hers but belonging to a man._

No _, she thinks,_ I don’t deserve this. You don’t deserve this.

 

_There is a sudden reprieve and she is brought down to the floor in a slump, gasping for breath that will not find her._

_‘What are you doing here?’ The voice snaps back and it’s haughty in its pain but there is a sense of wonderment, laced with accusation._

‘I don’t even know what’s happening,’ _she thinks to herself but it’s not to herself, not really. Nothing will ever be to herself again because before the retort is unleashed from his tongue, pain is again lacing through her body and she feels like she’s screaming herself hoarse but there’s no sound coming from her and she coughs, sobs catching in her throat,_ ‘stop, stop, stop, make it stop, please!’

_And then something is cut off, it feels like her mind has suddenly gone so blank that not even the deepest meditation she can offer compares to it and she’s back on the ground, gasping for air, gingerly turning over on her hands and knees, tears stinging her eyes as the pain in her body dulls and then disappears._

‘What…what are you doing? What’s happening to me? What’s happening to you?’ _There is no answer and she lies down on her stomach, arms pillowed underneath her head. ‘_ Ren,’ _she tests, the word falling from her mouth like ash and she_ knows _it’s Kylo Ren, knows without a shadow of a doubt that his voice is the one speaking to her and she’s too tired, too exhausted, too much in pain to understand_ why _. ‘_ Ren, _’ she tries again, reaching out for_ something _and she doesn’t even know_ how _she knows what to do, just that it comes as naturally as breathing, as naturally as surviving and she touches something metal, something that shocks her and sends her reeling back into her own body. ‘_ What’s happening?’

_There is a pause._ ‘ _I’m being punished.’_

_There is horror clawing at her throat and she knows he doesn’t deserve her sympathy, doesn’t deserve her pity because he’s tortured people, he’s killed people, he killed his own father in cold-‘do not,_ ’ _his voice is back and it’s icy and cold,_ ‘ _talk about my father like you knew him. You_ didn’t. _’_

‘And you did?’ _She snaps back at him. ‘_ You turned your back on the family who loved you, the family who was there for you and for…for what? For some genocidal maniac who _tortures_ you? Is that it, Ren? Do you like it? Do you being tortured? Does it give you some self worth? You’re _nothing_.’ _The words are spewing out of her mouth, the phantom pain still coursing through her mind and she’s shifting onto her knees, staring off into space and oh,_ oh _, the anger feels good, acting as an outlet for the pain she can’t seem to get hold of. ‘_ You’re nothing but a _coward_. A low-life murderer, a puppet and you want to be a Sith? You want to emulate your grandfather? You will never be _Darth Vader_ and you will’ _-she’s cut off by maniacal laughter and for a moment she’s confused until she realizes that it’s coming from Ren._

‘ _And_ you’re _training to be a_ Jedi _,_ ’ _his voice is mocking, still laced with pain that she knows he’s blocking her from feeling fully, ‘your Darkness comes in spades, Scavenger.’_

_‘_ I do _not_ have Darkness _,’ she’s petulant in her argument but she can recognize when he’s right, recognizes the satisfaction she got from spewing out words of hatred._

_‘Oh,’ he almost purrs,_ ‘ _you do. I can taste it.’_

‘I hate you.’

_There is silence before he answers with a heavy sigh,_ ‘ _I know.’_

_And then her mind is blank and she’s left a gasping mess, hands clutched to her chest, body heaving, gulping in fistfuls of stagnant air._

_[This is the first time they connect._

_But not the last.])_  

* * *

 

_‘Are you coming for me, Scavenger?’_ He asks her in his mechanical voice.

 

Rey nods her head, putting the _Falcon_ in hyperdrive and hopes beyond hope that it will somehow fall out of the sky so she won’t have to do this. So she won’t have to face him. _‘_ I am.’

 

_‘Good. I am waiting.’_

* * *

Hoth is a frozen barren wasteland of a planet and she curses him for choosing it. Curses him for this entire journey he’s set her on. The wind howls into the atmosphere, snow swirling around her and she steps forward, igniting her lightsaber, holding it in front of her and waits.

 

She knows he’s here. She knows because she felt him as soon as she entered the atmosphere. And so, she lands the _Falcon_ without any problems, despite her shaky hands and she takes a deep breath, steeling herself as she slams the button to open the ramp and she walks down it, careful of the snow and the ice that encases it all at once.

 

She feels him behind her at once, his presence flitting across her mind, making a home there and her hands clutch tighter on the hilt of her lightsaber. She turns around slowly, her lightsaber cutting through the air and it hisses as it moves, she can feel the snow melt and sizzle underneath it where she digs the tip into the snow. She stares at him, eyes wandering over him. He looks different but the same from when she sees him in her mind’s eye. He’s taller than she remembers, more defined, the scar she left him a puckering pink slashing across his face. He looks like a warrior here.

 

He looks like a Sith Lord, here.

 

And she, nothing but a Padawan who hasn’t even finished training, is thrust into this fight to the death.

 

_(“Do you think you’ll be able to bring him back?” The General asks her when they’re alone._

_She looks every bit like Rey thinks a worried and distraught mother would look. She looks every bit the strong General and grieving widow she is. Rey frowns, mind trailing to Kylo Ren and she brushes up against their connection but feels nothing, so she builds her walls, builds her defenses and does her best to patch over any weak links he more than once points out._ No _, Rey wants to tell her,_ your son is gone. He is no longer Ben Solo. Ben Solo doesn’t exist anymore.

 

There is only Kylo Ren.

_“I’ll try my best General.”_

_And she will. For Han. For Master Luke. For General Organa-Solo._

_And even though she won’t admit it, she thinks she’s doing this for Kylo Ren.)_

 

“Kylo.” The same slips out with familiarity and her face burns with heat, despite the subzero temperatures, with the intimacy of his chosen name that she speaks so readily. She has to raise her voice her against the howling winds but she knows that he can hear her.

 

“Rey.” Not _Scavenger_. Not _Little Girl_. Rey. Just _Rey_. And she closes her eyes for a brief moment, relishing in her name rolling off his tongue and then she feels ashamed.

 

She hears the buzzing of his lightsaber and she lifts hers.

 

_So_ , she thinks, _here is where we end_.

 

He doesn’t say anything and instead raises his lightsaber and charges at her and she follows, their sabers meeting clash for clash and he’s stronger than she remembers him being. Stronger and faster and more experienced and with a daunting feeling in the pit of her stomach, she _knows_ how this is going to end. She twists out of his grasp, slicing through the air aiming for his leg, managing only to singe the back of his calf and he howls, twirling around and hacking at her. She stumbles into the snow; saber raised just in time to meet it and the plasma burns her eyes, sweat freezing in this frozen barren wasteland of a planet.

 

She kicks him on his bad leg and he stumbles and she scrambles to get up, attacking him once more.

 

He lets out a roar. “ _FIGHT ME_!” He yells. “ _USE THE FORCE AND FIGHT ME!”_

 

She frowns at him, concentrating on a boulder of ice to her right and sends it flying at him but he stops it with one hand and it explodes into a thousand little shards. He throws his head back and laughs and it’s a hollow laugh, nothing like what she’s been privy to in the privacy of their shared minds. “Is this the best the old man could teach you?” He asks when they’re locked in combat, saber against saber, the clash of red and blue nearly blinding her and it’s _déjà vu_ , reminiscent of that fateful day back on Starkiller, what feels like forever ago. “ _I_ could have taught you much more. _I have_ taught you more and you refuse to use it! You could have belonged with the Gods!”

 

“I don’t belong to the dark.” Rey seethes at him, teeth snapping and then clenching. He’s pushing her backwards and she pushes back at him but she’s not strong enough and she looks back for one moment and sees a ledge and then hundreds of feet of ice and oh, _oh_ , this _is_ like Starkiller.

 

_Is this to be my penance? Is this to be my punishment?_

 

“Was your _father_ not enough?” She asks him, raising her voice and she thinks she sounds exhausted. She thinks she sounds like she’s given up and she has, she _has_. She’s _tired_. She’s tired of being used as a pawn. First by Plutt, then by the Resistance and now by some homicidal Supreme Leader, determined to see the end of her. “Was Han not enough so he demands a second sacrifice? Am _I_ to be your sacrifice, Kylo?” His name still feels personal, intimate coming from her lips and she refuses to be ashamed this time, rooting through all the memories of her, him, _them_. She lets her shoulders sag, doesn’t bother pushing against him anymore and lets herself be pushed to the edge. She holds her saber with one hand and her free hand comes up to his face, the heat of the plasma scorching her, but she’s lived her life under what felt like a thousand suns and has been burned many times before. She traces the contours of his face, tears stinging her eyes as she fumbles with her saber, flicking it off.

 

He tears himself away from her, roaring into the air, pointing his saber at her. “ _Fight me_!” He yells but in this moment, she can hear the lack of fury.

 

“I am tired of fighting.” She tells him truthfully, dropping her saber to the ground, hearing it _thunk_ in the snow as her surrender. “I am _tired_.” _I don’t want to hurt you. I don’t want to kill you. I don’t want to bring you to the Resistance._

 

He charges at her and she sucks in a breath, waiting for the searing pain of being impaled by a lightsaber or perhaps, the pause before he throws her off the ledge and all the time in between meeting her death on ice. Instead, he does neither and she sees him throw his lightsaber to the ground, can see him reaching out to her, grabbing her by the lapels and pulls her towards him, slamming his lips onto hers.

 

He’s violent in his kiss, breath steaming out like pants from exertion and he smells like sweat and ice and he tastes like death. He bites her lip hard enough that she tastes blood but before she can push him away, before she can press her hands to his chest and push back, she feels his hands cradle her face and his gloved hands belie the ferocity in his kiss.

 

She knows what he’s going to do before he does it and isn’t at all surprised when darkness sinks into her mind and she collapses into his awaiting arms.

 

She spares one last thought before she flies into oblivion: _Master, I wasn’t ready._  

* * *

 

_(“Rey.” Master Luke calls out as soon as she steps into the Falcon and she turns around, watching him stand at the base of the ramp. “Whatever happens…don’t forget that he was once Ben.”_

_She blinks and nods once, pressing the button to close the ramp but she stares at her Master, trying to tell him with her eyes that_ your nephew, your Ben doesn’t exist anymore. There’s only Kylo Ren _.)_


	2. He’s raised on the edge of the devil’s backbone (somewhere between a hangman’s knot)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OMG. OMG. OMG. YOU GUYS. YOU. GUYS. I CAN'T EVEN WITH YOU RIGHT NOW. I am so so grateful and humbled and honoured that you're giving this story a chance! You guys have blown my mind away with your response and wonderful support and love. THANK YOU ALL A THOUSAND TIMES OVER. *SOBS FOREVER*
> 
> Title is taken from the song 'Devil's Backbone' by The Civil Wars. 
> 
> Heads up: there is some mention and description of torture/mind torture and description of a battle that includes some references to death/torture/etc...so, I wanted to post this in case these are triggers for some people. And don't forget: Sentences in italics is Rey's thoughts   
> 'blah blah in italics' Kylo in the Force Bond  
> 'blah blah blah' Rey in the Force Bond  
> (huge chunks in italics) Flashbacks

When Rey wakes up, she wakes up with a headache that seems to resonate and her body stiff. There is a large black cloak draped over her body and she curls into it, lifting it to her nose and breathing in its scent. It smells like him. A little woodsy and something spicy that makes her nose twitch. Realizing what she’s doing, she pushes it away from her body, watching as it falls to the floor in a black endless pool and she crawls to the corner of the cot, head against the wall. She looks at her surroundings, studying them when she realizes that she’s on a ship. She can feel it smoothly gliding through space and she turns her head, looking out the small window and sees the stars and planets that pass her by and for a moment she thinks that everything is so infinite here and she wishes she could stay up here forever.

 

Then her memory returns and with an agonized groan, she lets her head fall back to the wall, the events replaying in her head like a horrible holovid. She grips the cot underneath her until she thinks her fingers tear holes in it and her eyes dart towards the door that remains closed. She knows better than to try and open it, knows better than to try and storm it. Knows that he probably has it trapped for the moment she touches it, because _she knows him_ , just as well, if not more, than _he knows her._

 

She closes her eyes and takes in a deep breath.

 

_(‘_ Get out,’ _she hisses at him at night when Master Luke has long since gone to sleep and Ahch-To is silent._

_‘You called to me, Scavenger,’ he tells her._

_She feels outraged by this and she frowns. ‘_ I would never call to you.’

_‘And yet…you did. So what does that say about you that you can’t keep your enemy out of your head?’_

_She feels petulant when she replies, ‘_ yeah, well, _you_ drag _me_ in the mess that’s _your head_ , so who can’t keep who out now?’

_There is silence and when he speaks, he speaks the truth and it’s not one that Rey can deny because on an intimate level, she knows it’s_ true _. ‘I’m not trying to keep you out and I never wanted you as my enemy._ You _made me into your enemy._ I _want you as my apprentice. As my_ partner _. We could rule together, you and I. We could be powerful and they would speak about us for centuries, our names painted in the sky in infamy.’_

_Her breath hitches, thoughts swirling and twirling inside of her head and there is something seductive about his words, something enchanting about what he’s telling her that she feels like she’s drowning in what he’s saying. There is_ something _about him offering her a place next to him that tugs at her but she shakes her head, as if the recognition of what he is saying and who he truly is, finally resonates with her. So, she pushes at him, shoving him out of her head with a last,_ ‘stay out of my head, _’ slamming her walls up so quickly she gets dizzy and the remnants of his laugh echo off the walls in her mind._

_She thinks about his offer all night, twisting and turning on the ground until she falls asleep and when she finally does succumb to oblivion, she thinks she remembers dreaming of whispered confessions across sweat-soaked skin and fingertips trailing and branding her most intimate areas and moans, whimpers and groans filling her mind until she wakes up with a gasp, sweating profusely and an ache between her thighs that she cannot quell, the dream slipping away from her, no matter how much she tries to call it back.)_

She hears the door hiss open and she cracks open her eyes, blinking at him. She thinks she could charge at him, run through the doors and fling herself into space so she can escape him but she won’t. The door hisses shut and she knows she lost her one and only chance when she sees the chains in his hands. He looks almost ashamed to be holding them. He looks almost sad to see her here, like _this_ , against her own accord.

 

_(‘You will come to me one day,’ he tells her this often, mostly at night, sometimes in the day when she gets frustrated with Master Luke. He says it so convincingly that sometimes, she almost believes him._ Sometimes.

‘Never.’

_‘You will.’)_

 

She gives him a sardonic grin that lacks all humor. “Am I not to be your guest this time?” Her body is still sore from the fight and she feels more exhausted than she remembers ever feeling, even if her body was in a Force-induced sleep.

 

He doesn’t say anything but he does stay rooted in his place, eyes roving over her and after he’s done assessing her, he walks closer to her, his boots echoing across the floor, like a blaster sound to the head.

 

She doesn’t shy away from his gaze, having long since become accustomed to his intrusions in her mind.

 

He shifts closer to her and she remembers being warned in Jakku about things that could look harmless but one bite and their poison would seep into their victims veins, sometimes killing them instantly and other times, the venom would draw the pain out, killing them slowly. It’s odd how she thinks about this as she in turn, shifts closer to him, drawn by him as she always is, as if waiting for the moment he strikes out at her and she wonders if he already has. She wonders if he already has poisoned her from the moment they discovered the Force bond between them and communicated freely, despite being on opposite ends of the war and in blatant defiance of their Master’s ideologies.

 

She raises her hands and she can see him cautiously flinch.

 

_(She’s a little bit tipsy, having found some Coreilla wine and other alcohols that Poe and Finn thrust into her hands. They’re celebrating a victory, a minor one, but a victory nonetheless in Coruscant. She was called from her training by the General herself and it was with a cock of an eyebrow that had her twin brother succumbing to her request and he sent Rey off planet to meet with the Resistance fighters._

_They were to get information pertaining to some locations of the First Order and they managed it while gathering some defectors to their side._

_It wasn’t too risky of a mission but the information was well worth it and Poe clapped both Finn and Rey on the shoulders, wrapping an arm around them and told them that they should celebrate. Jessika and Snap agreed readily and Rey found herself following them, listening to them chatter and she smiles at the right moments, laughs at the right moments and drinks whenever something is placed in her hands._

_There is a little prick at the back of her neck, the hairs on her skin standing on end and she knows without turning around who is on planet. She scans the bars, intrinsically looking for him but she doesn’t see him. After a couple of hours, her head is swimming and she gives Finn a lopsided smile as he hangs on every word Poe drunkenly says and she waves at them, tells them that she’s going to crash and waves off their concerns of her walking alone._

_“She’s a Jedi!” Poe exclaims loudly but grunts when Finn elbows him in the stomach and Jessika launches over the table to plant a hand over his mouth, hissing at him to_ keep it quiet.

_She turns around, bumping into bodies, sputtering out scattered apologies and she stumbles outside, the warm humid air, almost suffocating her. She fingers the collar of her gray shirt and it sticks to her body. She walks along unfamiliar streets, running her fingers across buildings, feeling the life that stems within the city and she drunkenly takes it all in, lets the Force swirl around her until it consumes her whole and she’s so entranced in feeling everything at the moment that she doesn’t notice the shadow behind her until it’s too late and by then, a hand is over her mouth and she’s being dragged into an alley and she pushes against her captor, the heel of her boot making contact with his shin and he grunts. She stills, recognizing the grunt and recognizing the breath that breathes hot air into her ear._

_She blinks up at him when he pushes her against the wall, the brick digging into her back. “What are you doing here?” She’s surprised she can form coherent sentences in her intoxicated state._

_He stares down at her like she’s an insect and his lips turn into a grimace. “The fact that you actually believe that I wouldn’t know who the defectors are and that they wouldn’t_ not _come to the Resistance for help,_ truly astounds me _. Are you and the rest of your merry band of idiots the best my dear mother could come up with? She must be grasping at short straws.”_

_Rey frowns, poking him in the chest. “I_ like _your mother. And do you ever get tired of listening to the sound of your own voice?”_

_“Do you ever get tired of hearing it?” He shoots back, pressing her closer to the brick wall, hands coming up on either side of her head and she sucks in a deep breath as she is completely covered by him. He smells like the forest and something spicy and it’s intoxicating and she thinks that if they made a drink out of the scent, she would devour it._

_“No.” She answers truthfully and her hands fly to the lapels of his cloak, toying with the buttons there and she can feel him suck in a breath, can feel his body tremble against hers and she doesn’t know what’s happening, doesn’t know why she isn’t screaming or fighting him or trying to get away. All she knows is that she fits perfectly against him, her head at a perfect height to lean into his chest and if he sank against her, he would be the perfect height to place his chin atop her head and she thinks they could be molded together like this, that perhaps, they were meant to be like this, carved from the stars and birthed from the Force._

_And then she thinks that she’s too drunk._

_“You’re intoxicated.” He states, rolling his eyes. “Lovely.” He bends his head until his mouth is at her ear and she squeezes her hands into his cloak, closing her eyes. “You’re being followed. Supreme Leader Snoke has issued a bounty on your head and he does not particularly care if you are dead or alive. You need to leave._ Now _.”_

_She blinks. “My friends-”_

_“He doesn’t care about your friends at this moment, he cares about_ you _. Rey, you need to leave.” He shoves a purple amulet in her hand. “Slip it around your neck, it will morph your appearance into someone different.”_

_She fingers the amulet, marveling at its color. “It’s beautiful.”_

_His fingers dig into her shoulders. “I will buy you a thousand more jewels but you need to_ leave _.”_

_And it takes her a moment to recognize that he’s trying to help her, that he’s trying to_ save _her and she’s a little less surprised than she thinks she should be. She closes her eyes, the alcohol finally catching up with her and then they flutter open, staring at him. He’s looking down at her with an expression that is mostly exasperated, a little bit angry and a pinch of worry and she finds that she doesn’t_ want _to leave him here. Finds that she doesn’t_ want _him to go back to Snoke._

_She lifts her hands from his cloak to his face, fingertips tracing his features and tracing the moles and freckles that make up constellations on his face. She can feel him tremble beneath her fingertips, can feel the blood rushing through his veins and she can see his pulse speed up and everything is amplified here, between them, and part of her wonders if it’s because of the bond between them that she can_ feel _grow stronger each passing day, or if everything is so amplified because it’s_ them _._

_“You could come with me.” She breathes. “I could…I could save you.” ‘_ Let me save you,’ _she thinks, ‘_ come with me.’

_He rears his head back and looks at her, eyes searching hers and for one dizzy moment, she thinks he’ll say_ yes _. He reaches up and grasps her wrists gently, pulling her hands away from his face but he doesn’t let them go, instead, he keeps eye contact with her as he places a soft open mouth kiss to her pulse on each wrist and her breath hitches, recognizing that something has changed between them and he leans closer to her, foreheads almost, but not quite, touching. “You cannot save me and I do not want to be saved.”_

_“Then what do you want?” She breathes out._

_‘You,’ is the unspoken reply that flits through her mind and her eyes widen. “I want to rule. I_ will _rule.” His mouth replies instead._

_It’s like a bucket of cold water has been poured atop of her and she rips her wrists away from him and backs into the brick wall. She stands there, the amulet hanging from her fingers and she can feel him get impatient, so he snatches the amulet and puts it around her neck, his fingers trailing across the black rope holding it in place against her tanned skin and his fingertips burn her through her shirt._

_“Leave, Rey. Go.”_

_She nods once and then ducks underneath his arms, only sparing him a last glance before she scurries to the cloaked Falcon undetected._

_When she got back to Ahch-To, it’s night and she crawls into her hut, ripping the amulet off her neck and stowing it under her pillow for safe-keeping._

‘I could have saved you _,’ she thinks._

_‘You could have,’ he agrees, not even a moment later, as if waiting for her to make contact with him, ‘but we both know that we wouldn’t want you to.’)_

 

Her fingertips trace his features and trace the moles and freckles that make up constellations on his face. She can feel him tremble beneath her fingertips, can feel the blood rushing through his veins and she can see his pulse speed up and everything is amplified her, between them and part of her _still_ wonders if it’s because of the bond between them that has consumed them both (but sometimes, sometimes, she wonders if it has consumed her more than it has consumed him), or if everything is so amplified because it’s _them_.

 

She can see everything in his eyes. She can see his past and his present that he has never tried to hide from her and she can see where he wants her in his life and tears come unbidden to her eyes. She leans closer, her breath ghosting over his face until their foreheads are touching. “I could have saved you.” _Why didn’t you let me save you?_

 

“You could have.” He agrees and she knows the answer before he says it, his voice husky, “But we both know that we wouldn’t want you to.”

 

Her fingers are still tracing shapes into the skin on his face, recognizing that while on Hoth, he didn’t wear his mask. “You didn’t wear your mask, why?”

 

_‘Because I wanted you to see my face,’_ he tells her through the bond.

 

She sighs and nods, accepting his answer for the truth and falling into a silent lull.

 

“You’re taking me to Snoke.” She says, filling in the silence once it becomes too oppressive. He doesn’t say anything, except to close his eyes and grip the chains and shackles more tightly. “Kylo.” She breathes out in a whisper, memories of doing so a hundred times before flit in her mind.

 

He frees one hand from the shackles he’s been gripping so hard and grasps one of her hands, bringing it down from his face and pressing an open mouth kiss to her pulse and she closes her eyes, relishing in the contact that she thought she would never have again.

 

(‘You will come to me.’

 

_‘Never._ ’

 

‘You will.’)

 

“Kylo.” It’s still a quiet whisper that escapes her. Her eyes fly open when she feels something cold and metal snap around her free wrist and in a blink he snaps the other chain to her other wrist; the same happens to her ankles, locking her in place and she’s looking at him with betrayal laced in her eyes and he can’t help but look away. “So, I _am_ to be your prisoner then.”

 

He leans forward, as if to press a kiss to her forehead but she spits at him, rage bubbling inside of her veins, the spit lands on his cheek and she _is_ livid, betrayed and hurt and she tries to let it seep through the bond but she finds that she can’t summon the Force and she glares at him accusingly.

 

“The chains,” He explains softly, his fingers trail against what is holding her captive, until they brush across the inside of her wrist and she flinches away from him and watches as he refuses to wipe away her spittle that marks his face (and it’s _always_ his face, isn’t it? She’s always marking him on his face for all the world to see when he takes off his mask and for only his eyes when he hides his face from the rest of the galaxy), “They stop the user from using the Force. They’re Force resistant.”

 

Her throat burns and she turns her head away from him, taking her place back in the corner of her cot, head against the wall.

 

She feels the cot shift and she can hear him shuffle towards the door, coming to a stop in front of his discarded black cloak. He looks down, studying it and he slowly bends at his waist, picking up the black material, dusty it off softly and laying it on the bed, next to Rey. He goes to press the button to allow the door to slide open when she tells him, “I hate you.” ‘I don’t,’ she thinks desperately mind, body and soul a frenzied mess of unnamed and untamed emotions, ‘I don’t.’

 

“I know.” He responds, his hand faltering over the button and after a moment, she can see him collect himself and press the button, stepping out of the door and turning around to face her and when she doesn’t say anything else, he presses another button and she hears it hiss close.

 

It’s only then that she starts to cry, blindly reaching for something, _anything_ and she doesn’t even think when she grabs his black cloak, shackles and chain clanking into one another, as she brings it to her face, burying herself in it and taking in the scent of him, something woodsy and something spicy, trying to stifle her sobs because he doesn’t deserve her tears and she won’t have his mercy. 

* * *

 

They arrive on another planet and he ushers her out to stunned Stromtroopers and a ginger-haired man in a uniform. She recognizes his insignia rank as General but she would never give him the respect that is owed to someone of his rank and her thoughts stray to General Organa-Solo and then Master Luke, Finn, Poe, Jessika, Snap and BB-8 and she wishes she could have had longer to say goodbye to them. She wishes she could have thanked them for welcoming her into their lives and integrating her so warmly. She wishes she could have told them that they were the family she always wanted.

 

“I see you’ve brought back the Scavenger, Ren.” The General looks at her with barely veiled disdain, his nose turning up at the sight of her. “Supreme Leader Snoke is waiting for you both.” The General steps closer towards her, hand raising up, a hair’s breadth away from her face and she recoils when he fingers a strand of her hair, bile rising in her throat and she hopes her aim is true enough that she projectile vomits in his face. “So, you’re the desert flower, hmm…?”

 

A hand encased in a thick black leather glove creaks as he grips the General’s wrist so tightly that Rey can see his fingers turn purple. “Do not.” Kylo Ren tells the General, his mask is on now, his voice mechanical and cold, “Presume that you can touch her. You cannot and will not.”

 

The General smirks at him, nods once and twists out of his grasp, shaking out his victimized hand and holding both out in defeat. “Understood.” He bows his head in reverence and Rey frowns, staring between the two as something unsaid is exchanged between them.

 

In an instant, the General has his back turned and is walking away from them and Rey is being pulled into another direction, leaving her mind a jumbled mess as to what she just witnessed.

 

_(“What do you want?”_

_‘You.’ “I want to rule. I_ will _rule.”)_  

* * *

 

Snoke is, if Rey is being honest, uglier than she thought he would be. _He is a phantom_ , she thinks, _nothing but an wrinkled old phantom that used to be a man_ and she looks around them, trying to find a weak spot to exploit.

_(“He doesn’t know” He speaks through his mask, hand on the door, not quite ready to go in. “About the bond. Between us. He doesn’t know. When you go in, you must ensure that he doesn’t find it. Bury it deep and enforce walls upon walls around it.”_

_“Hiding pertinent information from your Supreme Leader?” Rey sneers. “How traitorous of you, Kylo Ren.”_

_He doesn’t say anything; instead, he unshackles her and pushes the door open all the while pushing her inside.)_

 

Snoke studies her, a little wheezing sound escaping his lips as he stares at her, eyes alight with barely restrained maniacal mirth. “Ah, there you are.” He finally says. “Skywalker’s Padawan. Your history precedes you.”

 

Rey doesn’t say anything, instead, she stares defiantly at Snoke.

 

“Tell me, Scavenger Girl, just how strong are you?”

 

She still doesn’t say anything, biting her bottom lip to keep from lashing out.

 

“ _Answer me, girl_!” Snoke thunders and the walls around them shake but she stands her ground.

 

“You,” She starts and she can almost feel Kylo tense behind her. “Are _not_ my Master and I do not have to answer you.”

 

There is silence before Snoke begins to laugh and it is an unhinged laugh and neither she, nor Kylo Ren laugh with him. He stops suddenly and all at once, a pain so severe rips through her body that she crumbles to the floor, teeth biting through her lip as she tries to stifle her screams. It doesn’t work and with the taste of her blood in her mouth, she lets out a blood-curdling scream and she can feel Snoke press into her mind, savagely and brutally.

 

He roots around, scrambling her mind and she’s shrieking at him to get out. _Get out!_ _Get out!_ And with one push, she lets out a feral scream and is sent flying some feet backwards, lying in a crumpled heap in front of Kylo’s feet. She’s gasping for air, chest heaving and scrambling to get up on her own. Her body betrays her as she sinks to the ground, unable to stand on her own two feet.

 

Snoke is staring at her in wonderment, if not some amusement. “So, you _are_ worthy of your name then.” There is a smirk on his face and Rey feels her heart sink to her stomach. “Perhaps I won’t have your head quite yet. You would be a powerful asset to me. Lord Ren,” Snoke’s voice is cold when he addresses him. “Ensure that your new apprentice, Miss Kenobi, wants for nothing.”

 

She can barely hear his sucked in breath but Rey twitches at the familiar last name. “Kenobi?” She asks groggily.

 

Snoke laughs again and it echoes against the walls and her stomach coils. “Skywalker didn’t tell you? Another secret kept from you? Your entire existence has been kept a secret and how pitiful a life you’ve led when you could have had greatness. Ask Ren to tell you, he knows all about the Kenobi’s and their connection to the Skywalker’s.” And just like that, he disappears, the vestiges of his torture still flickering through her body.

 

She stares up at him in the dark room and shakes her head, wincing at the movement and flinching away from him when he kneels in front of her, reaching out to her. And oh, she forgot that he was even here, as he stood idly by and let her get tortured by the same man who tortures him and doesn’t that mean anything? Doesn’t the fact that she has been there for him, soothing him after Snoke would take out his rage on him, mean anything to him? She guesses not, not if him standing by and not saying or doing anything to help or apparently keeping things from her, like everyone else always has ( _but he was different_ , she thinks weakly, _you were supposed to be different_ ), says anything. And it does, she wants to sob, it does say _everything_. She lifts her head higher, sucking in a deep breath and watches his masked face, as if trying to guess what his features are being twisted into. “You never stop disappointing me, do you?”

 

She thinks she almost hears a strangled groan emit from his mask but she’s too busy falling forward, darkness edging into her vision and overcoming her as her body succumbs to the pain and oblivion has never been so welcome as it is in this moment. 

* * *

 

_(She’s sobbing, tears streaming down her face in the dead of the night and everything stings, everything hurts, everything_ burns _. She can almost smell the corpses of the people burned and can almost see their charred bodies, can almost hear their screams and when she closes her eyes, she_ does _, so she keeps them wide open and cries for the souls who are lost and won’t ever come back._

_She feels disgusted when pride runs through his veins and in turn, seeps into hers and she shakes her head, wailing at him through their, asking him ‘_ why? Why are you doing this? What did they ever do to you?’

_He doesn’t answer back but he leaves the bond wide open and she continues to sob, shoving her pillow into her mouth, trying to stifle her weeping sorrow._

_‘You shouldn’t have seen that,’ he says a little while later when he and the rest of his Knights are back in the shuttle._

‘You shouldn’t have done it!’ _She yells at him, ‘_ what did they ever do to you?’

_‘They were supporters of The Resistance and had valuable information; it’s a necessary part of war. You know this.’_

‘ _I_ have valuable information! So, why haven’t you killed _me_ yet?!’

_There is a pause before he tells her, ‘I have plans for you, Rey.’ She can see him look out the window of the shuttle and she can see the carnage left in his wake and her bottom lip trembles. ‘This will all be mine and I have to ensure that no one,_ no one _, will question my claim.’_

_She sucks in a deep breath, recognizing at once that all he wants is_ power _, all he has ever wanted is power and she wonders idly why she thought that it would have changed. She remembers nights when she couldn’t sleep and she remembers his voice, soft in her mind, telling her stories and she remembers sharing with him things she hadn’t shared with anyone, not even Finn and she feels ashamed that she bared her soul to the only person who was able to see and hear and feel everything._

_But mostly, she feels disappointment in his actions and his reactions, or rather, lack of and she thinks that_ this is how it was meant to be _. How it will_ always _be. ‘_ You will never stop disappointing me, will you?’

_‘Rey…’_

_She doesn’t let him finish the thought, instead, she slams a wall around her mind and keeps him out, biting her lip, ignoring the shaking of her mind as he rails to be let in and she lets her tears soak her pillow.)_

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SERIOUSLY. WORDS CANNOT EXPRESS HOW MUCH I LOVE ALL OF YOU. THANK YOU SO SO MUCH!


	3. But every day I found new ways to hurt you (and it’s just my soul responding to the heavy heart I’m holding)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> YOU GUYS. HOLY SHIT YOU GUYS. I CAN'T EVEN WITH YOU. YOU HAVE NO IDEA HOW MUCH ALL OF YOUR WORDS AND KUDOS AND EVERYTHING MEANS TO ME. I'M GOING TO SOB WITH SO MUCH LOVE FOR HOW MUCH LOVE YOU'RE SHOWING ME. THANK YOU A THOUSAND TIMES OVER. 
> 
> Warnings for this chapter: little violence, and like a little brief smattering of lime. 
> 
> Title of this chapter is taken from the song 'Just my soul responding' by Amber Run.
> 
> Hope you enjoy! :)

When Rey wakes up, for the second time, it’s dark and her head is pounding and her body still aches, but this time, it feels like it’s amplified. She turns her head, face burrowing in the soft pillow and she almost jolts, not recognizing the gray sheets she’s encased in.

 

She gets up slowly, breathing heavily and holding her head in her hands. She’s in different clothes, soft black pants and a black t-shirt, vaguely remembering bright lights and a medi-droid; she takes in her surroundings and it’s sparse, she can see to the right, an open door to the ‘fresher and she can see a metal table with one metal chair in the corner, tucked in against one of the walls and a bureau.

 

There is no life in this room, there is no color and it depresses Rey because even though her hut on Ahch-To was small, it was _hers_ and she made it hers, just like she made her AT-AT hers back in Jakku.

 

She can hear the hiss of the door open and she snaps her head up quickly, hand reaching for her lightsaber that she keeps next to her, only to come up empty and she curses as the door hisses shut and she’s glaring at Kylo Ren, fully equipped in his uniform, including that forsaken helmet that she _hates_.

 

“Your saber-or rather _mine_ , if we’re to get technical-is safe.” He informs her.

 

“If it’s with you, then I hardly think it’s safe.” She snaps back at him, getting off the bed. She should have thought about that a little bit more because once she’s up, she can feel her legs buckle, can feel the pressure of pain in her body rear it’s ugly head and she hisses as she crumbles, fully expecting to hit the ground, but as she rushes to meet it, she’s stopped midway by arms that wound around her waist, pulling her against him. “Take your hands off me.” Her voice is cold and it comes out in a hiss.

 

She can feel him walking her towards the bed and he sets her down on the edge, hands falling away, back to his sides and she mourns the loss of them instantly and hates herself just a little bit more. She looks everywhere _but_ at him, biting her lip because she knows that if she does look at him, knows that if she does let go of her bottom lip that is being chewed raw, she’ll do something drastic. Like hit him. Or rail at him. Or hug him.

 

_(‘_ You’re sad _,’ Rey observes. She’s waist deep in the water surrounding Ahch-To and it’s cold but she ignores the biting water around her body and concentrates on the loneliness that exudes through the bond. She can feel fish swim between her legs and she lets out a little giggle, cupping the water in her hand and letting it fall. Her shift is soaked and translucent and the high sun is starting to set, bathing the water in an unearthly shade of pink. Master Luke has long since retired to his own secluded place for meditation and Rey took that time to wash her robes and take a dip in water that she was once in awe of._

_But even new things lose their appeal after awhile and water becomes just water and the sea becomes just an expanse, a body of water that will one day take her anywhere she wishes to go. ‘_ Why are you sad?’

It’s strange _, she thinks, how new things lose their appeal but never once has she ever thought of stopping this bond between them, never once has she ever thought that she would get tired of hearing his voice in her mind and at first she hated it, at first she railed against it because the wounds of her interrogation and of Han’s death were so raw and fresh and even now, she still feels guilt at seeking his companionship over that of her Master’s but something calls her to him, something across planets and seas and stars, there is something forming that has everything to do with the both of them._

_He doesn’t answer her but his presence is still heavy in her mind._

_She shrugs and ducks her head under water, sucking in a deep breath before she submerges herself. She opens her eyes under water and stays down there until she feels like her lungs are going to expand and burst and even then, she waits, just a little bit longer. It’s so serene down here, so peaceful and quiet and she feels everything so acutely down here. She can feel the earth underneath her feet, she can feel the water swoshing into her ears and flowing around her body, she can almost hear the swish-swish of fishes as they swim past her but sooner rather than later, she needs to breathe, so she swims upwards, throwing her head back and gulping in half a dozen lungful breaths of air. She runs her hands over her wet hair and down her neck, clasping her hands behind her neck and staring at the setting sky._ It’s beautiful _, she thinks absentmindedly._

_‘You’re beautiful,’ is the automatic reply, barely a whisper in her mind._

_It freezes her more than the cold water does. ‘_ What did you say?’ _Rey asks and she can’t even bring herself to make it a reprimand, instead, it’s almost breathless and she feels her heart start to beat faster, wondering if he meant to say it. He doesn’t say anything back to her, so she probes the connection gently, almost sighing when he doesn’t shove her out, but she can still feel his sadness acutely and it hasn’t abated any, if anything, it’s been amplified and she feels hollow, tears stinging her eyes in response to his unknown sorrow. There is a beat of silence and then she reaches out again,_ ‘Kylo? Why are you sad?’

_‘I lost one of my Knights today. Your Resistance friends ambushed them outside Coreilla, while my Knights were on a reprieve.’_

_Rey feels her breath hitch at the sound of his voice, so hurt at the loss and vengeful with thoughts of retribution flitting through his mind and subsequently hers. She almost doubles over, suddenly sick with the images that barrage her. ‘_ The Resistance,’ _she starts slowly, ‘_ wouldn’t just ambush without reason.’

_He laughs and it’s hollow but deep, just like his sadness. ‘You know nothing of war. You think it’s black and white. The good side and the bad side. The Jedi and the Sith. The Resistance and the First Order. Do you sincerely think that your precious Resistance isn’t above torturing and even killing for information?’_

_She frowns, shaking her head and she shivers in the cold water, heart clenching. ‘_ You don’t know what you’re saying. We’re nothing like you…you…you’re…’

_‘I’m_ what _, Rey?’ He snarls and it echoes in her mind with fury. ‘A monster? At least_ I _own up to it. At least I realize what I’ve done and what I’m willing and capable of doing. Your precious Resistance hides its true nature to seem like they’re the right course, like they fight for the greater good and not for their own advancement._ Everyone _has an ulterior motive, Rey. Just ask your Master.’_

‘Stop it!’ _She shrieks and in her mind she can see what she briefly saw while at the Resistance base, she can see the General descending stairs with people of brute strength, she can see the tools that are covertly cleaned, she can almost hear the railing of their prisoner’s of war as they are confined to their solitude, devoid of any light and absent of any sensory stimulation. And there is blood on both sides, Rey knows thinks, and perhaps she always knew it but the Resistance has Finn. The Resistance has Poe and Jess and the General. The Resistance has her Master and Chewie and the Resistance had Han before he was killed._

_And who does the First Order have? No one._

_Except for Kylo Ren._

_And sometimes, the darkest part of her mind that she’s not sure is actually hers or his, tells her that maybe, just maybe, that is_ enough _._

_But she remembers the way he strapped her to a chair and the way he entered her mind and she remembers the way he was left open for her to enter without even knowing how she did it. She remembers the way he felt, the way fear and guilt and loneliness gnawed at him and she probes the connection between them now, wondering if that fear is still present and she almost weeps when it’s not, when the last vestige of what she thinks was his humanity is replaced with pure rage and hatred._

_They stay like this for a while, until Rey can’t feel her toes and she starts shivering. Her teeth are chattering and the water is black as the night sky above her._ ‘I…I’m sorry for the loss of your friend.’

 

_He is tight-lipped but she can feel him sag, can feel the memories of this Knight who had a bright smile when his helmet was off and who’s green eyes twinkled and who liked playing pranks, mostly on a certain ginger-haired General when no one was looking. Rey can feel the grief he will never allow himself to show to anyone else other than her and Rey’s heart cracks and her arms reach out without thinking, they wind themselves around his waist, squeezing him tightly to her, head pillowed on his chest, listening to his erratic heartbeat and it’s almost like he’s here with her or she’s there with him and she can feel the Force around them cackle with energy._

_‘What are you doing?’_

_‘_ I’m hugging you _,’ she answers quietly, ‘_ I’m comforting you _.’ And she wonders who the last person was that comforted him. Has he ever been comforted? When was the last time someone touched him for the sake of touching him, of being close to him and not because they wanted something from him? ‘_ Does this bother you? I…I can let go.’

_She feels his phantom arms around her back, nails digging into her shift and branding her with marks on her back and she thinks that if someone were to put his hands over the imprints, they would find it to be the perfect fit. ‘Don’t…’ he says softly, ‘don’t go.’_

‘I’m here,’ _she tells him,_ ‘I’m here, Kylo. I’m here. _’)_

“What do you want from me?” She asks him, voice and body resigned.

 

“To teach you.” He replies. “A _year_ with Skywalker and he’s taught you _nothing_.”

 

‘That’s not true,’ she thinks to herself, ‘Master Luke taught me plenty.’

 

‘ _He taught you to_ fail,’ Kylo replies tersely. ‘ _Or do you suddenly forget the nights_ I _could come to you and aid in your advancement? Do you forget when I would correct your stance while my uncle looked away like a fool? Your Master has no patience and no heart for teaching anymore.’_

 

‘Because of you,’ she tells him, ‘because he was afraid of failing me like he failed you.’

 

_‘He_ was _afraid and because of his fear, he sent you to what he knew was certain death. The Resistance doesn’t care about you, Rey. If they did,_ where are they _? Where is your precious_ traitor _or that insufferable oaf of a pilot? Where is the General in all her motherly wisdom and where is your_ Master _who taught you_ nothing _?’_

 

“Stop it!” She yells, standing up with renewed strength and even though her body cries out in pain, she raises her hands in front of her and pulls the Force to her, thrusting it into his chest and she watches as he goes careening into the wall, helmet slamming into it with a painful sound and crack and Rey trembles, staring at her hands in horror. She brings them down to her side and stumbles her way next to his body. Her breath catches in her throat as her hands, that have caused him this damage, search his helmet for the latch. It takes her a few tries, mostly because her vision is blurry with hot tears but she finally finds it, hearing it hiss and she yanks it off his head with gentleness that contradicts her previous violence. “Kylo?” She calls out softly, strange bubbles erupt in her throat. “Kylo?”

 

After three heartbeats, he lets out a groan, eyes blinking and she sags in relief, climbing over him, straddling his lap and wrapping her arms around his neck, pressing her body close to his, sinking her face into his neck, tears soaking his cloak.

 

_(‘_ Where have you been?’ _She asks him groggily. She could feel him in her sleep, probing at their connection and it woke her up. She reaches out behind her, as if expecting him to be there and is met with air._

_‘Away,’ he whispers softly to her, as if afraid of disrupting her._

_‘_ You’re tired _,’ she says, gazing over his signature and recognizing the tiredness of his eyes when he takes off the helmet and shrugs off his cloak and strips down until he is in a thin tunic and his pants._ ‘Come to sleep.’ _[And oh, what a lover’s request this is and maybe, just maybe, this is what they are, maybe, just maybe, this is what they are destined to become.]_

_‘With you?’ It’s asked in surprise and if she were more awake, she would understand what a dangerous predicament they were getting themselves into but Rey is still drunk on sleep so she just nods and feels him settle into his own bed and shifts until it’s like he is spooning her and she can almost feel his arms wrap hesitantly around her waist, pulling him to her, pressing his face into her hair and breathing in deeply. ‘You’re cold.’_

‘It’s cold here,’ _she grumbles, defending herself, turning until her breasts are pressed against his chest and her face is tucked into the hollow of his neck._

_‘Where are you?’_

‘Kylo.’

_He lets out a breath of laughter and she feels it shift her loose hairs._

_‘I find it is lonely in my head without you,’ he confesses to her._

_She’s silent, hands coming up to his waist, fingers trailing paths across his defined torso. His body ripples with her touches._ ‘I missed you, _’ she admits, (and oh, she_ did _. In the weeks when the connection between them was closed, for some reason that she can sense he doesn’t want to tell her, she found a hollow ache in her chest grow larger and larger until it consumed her and then, just as he returned, it diminished, banished to the darkness as he opens the bond between again and she relishes in his mind brushing and entangling with hers.) She closes her eyes and drifts off to sleep, with the phantom body of her supposed enemy tucked into hers, legs and arms intertwining until neither they nor the Force can tell which body belongs to who._

_[Outside a storm brews, the air cackles with electricity and thunder echoes across the skies throughout the galaxy and a Master with a metal hand snaps awake, jolting awake, a long lost name, one syllable three letters, escaping his lips, “Ben.”_

_A Supreme Leader leans forward on his throne, trying to read the energy around him and raging like thunder when it doesn’t bend to his will._

_And in between all that, a mother, a General, for the first time in years, hopes.]_

_They don’t realize it then, or maybe they do but they just don’t heed the warnings, but they’ve damned themselves with their confessions.)_

 

She pulls away from him, arms still wrapped around his neck and legs still straddling his. “What will happen if I refuse to train with you?”

 

Kylo closes his eyes, leaning his head backwards and Rey’s hands automatically shift, pillowing his head so that it rests against her hands and not the wall. She presses her fingers into his scalp, massaging it and his mouth drops open, a strangled moan escaping his lips. Rey’s body trembles as she feels something swell against the apex of her thighs and her cheeks burn.

 

“Supreme Leader Snoke will have you tortured for information and then he’ll have you killed.”

 

“He’ll make you do it.” Rey guesses.

 

He opens his eyes and nods once, his hands shifting to her waist and pulls her tighter against him so that his growing erection is pressed against her and Rey bites back a moan, head falling back, teeth chattering as his lips ghost over her exposed collarbone. His hands shift under her shirt and she gasps, for the first time since their rendezvous in Coreilla, feeling his skin on hers and she wonders idly when he discarded his gloves and finds that she doesn’t _care_ , not when his hands are trailing a fiery path on her skin and not when she’s arching into them, long lost fading memories assaulting her in their cracked fervor and not when his tongue is laving at her neck. She grips his shoulders tightly, gasping when he bites down on her pulse and she whimpers when his thumbs rub her nipples through her breast wrap. “Kylo.” She breathes, “Kylo.”

 

He lifts his head, reaching up until his lips are hovering just above hers and she’s sharing the same breath as him. His hands are cupping her breasts fully and she grinds her hips into his. “Do you remember the dreams?” He asks her in a breathless whisper. She shakes her head, inching forward and pressing just the barest of touches of her lips to his and his lips are hot to the touch, she finds. She doesn’t remember the dreams but she remembers the clawing need, the insatiable hunger for something more once she woke and she remembers the dampness of her underclothes and the way her body would be drenched in a cooling sweat. She remembers her erratically beating heart and the ghost of touches and lips and vague whispers and moans. “The dreams haunt me.” He admits to her, lips still pressed together but not kissing and she wants to scream, she wants to cry, she wants to kiss him until he takes her breath away but he knows, without a doubt that it will be a violent kiss and she doesn’t think she can take anymore violence right now, doesn’t think she can administer anymore violence towards him anymore, not when their future seems to be wrought with it. “ _You haunt me_.”

 

He pulls away from her lips, pressing a lingering kiss to her forehead and his breath is shaky as he pulls away from her, retracting his hands from under her shirt and shifting her downwards until she is balanced precariously on his knees, his straining erection evident between them.

 

Rey is struggling with catching her breath but she stares at him, cheeks flushed, eyes wild and body thrumming with a want so intense it makes her shake. “What will happen to you if I don’t agree?”

 

“He’ll torture me, most likely. Kill me when he sees I’ve failed him a second time.”

 

Rey sucks in a deep breath, flashes of Han’s death crossing her mind’s eye and from the tormented twist of his face, she knows he can see it too. “He called me Miss Kenobi. I…I recognize that name. Master Luke, he…he mentioned someone…”

 

“Not now, Rey.” He tells her softly, leaning his head back against the wall.

 

There is silence and Rey places her hands on his thighs and she can feel him tense underneath her. “You’ll tell me the truth, _all of it_?” ‘No more secrets, no more lies, tell me the truth Kylo. Let me help you. Help me.’

 

There is a slight hesitation but Kylo nods slowly, agreeing to the terms.

 

He doesn’t look her in the eyes and Rey feels something plummet in her stomach when she realizes that he’s _lying_ to her, that _something_ is coming, something only he knows but won’t share. 

* * *

 

_(‘_ Do you know who my parents are?’ _Rey asks him one day in mid-summer. She’s outside, staring at the night sky because it’s too hot in her hut. The heat almost reminds her of Jakku but it’s different, much more humid that Jakku ever was. Her clothes stick to her body and even the water burns at her touch._ ‘I try asking Master Luke but he always says that it’s not his place to tell.’

_‘Then_ whose _place is it? He’s_ your _Master.’ There is a sort of jealousy that echoes from his statement but Rey pushes it aside._

_She thinks back to Master Luke and the way he closes his eyes, as if in pain at the mere mention of her parents or of her family. She thinks back to his eyes when he opens them and tells her that it’s not his place and when she asks him the same question Kylo asks her, (_ then whose place is it? You’re my Master, why won’t you tell me?) _there is a pain so deep in her Master’s eyes that it makes her breath catch. He looks at her knowingly, looks at her as if she should have known the answer all along and he looks at her as if telling her that he knows_ who _is in her mind and even worse who she willingly lets in her mind and who she is bonded to. He looks at her as if she is a mistake waiting to be made again and again and again. He looks at her like she is doomed and damned and everything in between._

‘I think, _’ she says slowly, testing the words on her lips, ‘_ that you’re supposed to tell me.’

_He is silent on the other end. ‘When you come to me,’ he promises._

‘I will never come to you.’

_‘You will.’)_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HAVE I MENTIONED HOW MUCH I LOVE YOU ALL? BECAUSE I DO. SO EFFIN' MUCH. THANK YOU SO MUCH!


	4. It’s only half past the point of no return (and have you ever felt this way?)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OMG. I LOVE YOU GUYS. LIKE SERIOUSLY LOVE YOU GUYS. IT'S UNFAIR HOW MUCH. THANK YOU A MILLION AND ONE TIMES OVER! IT MEANS SO MUCH TO ME!
> 
> And here! Have some Lemons! You've been forewarned, there are some sexytimes ahead. 
> 
> Title is taken from the song 'Glitter in the Air' by Pink. 
> 
> Hope you enjoy!

There is a sort of resignation in the way she follows the Stormtroopers to the training room. She looks at their white and black chrome uniforms and she wonders if they’re as well-conditioned as their higher ups believe them to be. She wonders if there are any more Finn’s, anymore troopers who don’t want to be on this base. She wonders if there’s many of them who don’t believe in the cause anymore and then she wonders if they believed in the cause in the _first place_ or if it was just part of their conditioning, the brainwashing that makes them believe they are doing the right thing.

 

And then she wonders what the _right thing_ actually _is_.

 

Because for so long, she thought being a scavenger was the _right thing to do_ because it was the _only_ thing available to her. Then BB-8 rolled into her life and she helped him and then Finn because she knew what it was like to be lost and alone and afraid and she felt that was the _right thing to do_. Then she helped Han Solo because he could have been the father figure she always yearned for and because it felt like the _right thing to do_. Then she ran away from Maz Kanata’s Cantina because of everything that happened in that gloomy basement and because she wasn’t ready to face whatever it was that flashed before her eyes and because running felt like the _right thing to do_. Then she escaped from the interrogation room and from Kylo Ren’s heavy looks and his mind intrusion because fear still coursed through her and she didn’t know what was going to happen to her (him, them) and because she felt like it was the _right thing to do_. Then she screams when she watches Han Solo die because falling into the abyss was the one man who could have guided her through the second half of her life and who gave her a chance to be something more than what Jakku offered her (and she remembers wanting to scream again when she watches Kylo Ren crumble from the blaster shot to his side and watches him stumble but she bites her lip so hard it bleeds to keep the scream from emitting because he didn’t _deserve_ her pity and most certainly didn’t deserve her sympathy and because it was the _right thing to do_.) Then she remembers fighting him because she remembers seeing Finn get cut open and she remembers the way Kylo Ren slashed at her and she remembers feeling the Force around her and she remembers his pleas of _I could be your teacher! I could show you the ways of the Force!_ So she lets her grief and pain and anger fuel her and she retaliates with strength she didn’t know she possessed and she remembers slashing and twisting and she remembers the hiss of the lightsaber meeting his shoulder and then slashing across his face and she remembers the earth splitting open and she remembers leaving him on the other side and wishing him dead and it all felt like the _right thing to do_.

 

(And then she remembers falling into General Organa’s arms, mourning with grief, thinking it was the _right thing to do_.)

 

(Her life, she finds, is a series of _then’s_ and what comes after them.)

 

Going to find Luke, leaving Finn in the capable hands of Poe Dameron and BB-8 felt like the _right thing to do_. Studying under Master Luke felt like the _right thing to do_.

 

And continuing to let Kylo Ren inside her head, having conversations with a man who for all intents and purposes _should_ have died but _didn’t_ , felt like the _right thing to do_. Well, she admits, at first it was wrong and she rebelled against it because it’s in her nature but it wasn’t long after the first conversation that she craved contact because Master Luke while attentive, often preferred being to himself, Chewie had long since been gone, taking his grief with him but leaving ample enough for them and she was _lonely_ , so _very_ lonely, so when _she_ reached out a second time, hesitantly and he answered back, it all fell into place for them and though she was ashamed to admit it, talking to him in the secrecy of her own mind felt intrinsically like the _right thing to do_.

 

Rey has lived her life by doing what she thought was right but now she’s starting to realize that her version of what is right is different than other’s and the more she thinks about it, the more she makes herself sick.

 

The Stormtroopers stop in front of a metal door and open it for her, letting her in and then shutting it behind her. Rey jolts at the sound but enters deeper into the room. She looks around, eyes skimming at the mats underneath her feet and without hesitation, she toes off her boots and socks, standing in the middle of the training room with standard training leggings and a tank-top. She walks further and runs her hands over the staffs and various forms of weapons, recognizing that they’re all dummy versions of the real ones. There is a mirror along one side of the wall and her breath hitches, blinking rapidly, an odd sense of déjà vu prickling at the base of her neck.

 

_(She lets out a groan when her back meets the mats and she lies still, staring at the ceiling until a familiar face enters her vision. She’s panting heavily, trying to bring her legs up to kick him, but he’s quicker and much stronger and blocks her, trapping her legs underneath his and his hands reach for her wrists, gripping them tightly and slamming them over her head. His hands are large and just one is more than enough to keep both her wrists in place, so he does just that and drops his free hand to her stomach, keeping her in place._

_She’s letting out huffs of breath and he’s breathing heavily in her face and his breath puffs over her, his sweat mingling with hers. She tries lifting her hips in an effort to push him off but he presses down on her harder and when she feels the swell of his erection against her thigh, she stops, looking at him with wide eyes._

_The hand on her stomach drifts and drifts and drifts and she turns her head, catching her face in the mirror, flushed red with exertion and arousal and she almost misses the words coming from his mouth, until he puts his lips to the shell of her ear, “will you beg for me, Rey?”)_

 

_It’s not a memory_ , she thinks wildly, staring at her reflection in the mirror. She doesn’t remember any of that but she does remember waking up in the morning, itching to look at herself in the mirror to see if the same shade of red followed her from her dreams into reality.

 

She hears the door slam shut and she can feel his presence. She turns around slowly, heart dropping just slightly when she sees his helmet and cloak. But before she can say anything, he starts shedding layers, starting with his helmet, putting it off to the side. His face is clear in this light, almost ethereal under the harsh fluorescent light, it makes her breath hitch. Makes her gasp just a little bit and she thinks her heart clenches tightly when he shrugs off his cloak and gloves until they’re a heap on the mats and he’s in training pants and a standard black tank-top.

 

_They match_ , is what filters through her mind when she catches a deactivated lightsaber in her hands after he throws it at her, she twirls it around, thumbing it on and she can feel the power, less than it usually is and not as hot and deadly as it usually is, in her hands. It’s a familiar weight and it’s almost like she’s back on Starkiller Base, holding it and fighting with instincts she didn’t know she had.

 

“Skywalker taught you how to strengthen your mind, I’ll give him that at least but he lacked in teaching you physical skills.” He says, and while Rey will recognize this as true, she thinks that Master Luke failed in teaching her mental prowess as she _still_ managed to let Kylo in whenever she felt him probe at their connection and often times reached out to him on her own accord. He walks around her until he’s at her back. He slips a leg between hers and pushes her feet apart, hands at her waist and twisting her around until she’s in the position he wants her in. “Luckily for you, I’m going to teach you both.” There is a pause before he lowers his head, lips at the shell of her ear, “I will not be going easy on you, Rey. The task ahead of you is arduous and hard.”

 

“What task?” She asks and she’s almost proud of herself at the way her voice doesn’t crack like she desperately thinks it will. She’s proud of herself for being in such close proximity with him that she can smell his cologne, like the forest and something spicy, and hasn’t turned around, wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him down to her, devouring his mouth the way he wouldn’t do earlier. And oh, _oh_ , she burns red just thinking about.

 

He clears his throat and his hands leave her hips, stepping away from her and grabbing another lightsaber. “What do you know of the Combat Forms?”

 

Rey cocks an eyebrow and he sighs. “So, the beginning then.”

 

She can hear his disappointed, _kriffing Skywalker_ , loud and clear and Rey has to bite her lip to keep from smirking, the unknown task ahead of her pushed to the side but never truly forgotten.

* * *

_(‘You’re doing it wrong.’_

_Rey rolls her eyes as she practices alongside the edge, listening to the sea pound against the rocks. She’s trying the most rudimentary of Forms and she’s becoming frustrated when she fails. ‘_ Thank you, Captain Obvious.’

_There is a pause, ‘I’m a Lord befitting my rank.’_

_He sounds almost offended and Rey can’t help it, she bursts into a peal of laughter, dropping her lightsaber onto the ground and clamping her hands over her mouth, lest her Master wake up and wonder why she was laughing. ‘_ That was sarcasm, Kylo. You should try it, once. You may even like it.’

_He doesn’t answer her, instead, she can see him in her mind’s eye, walking in circles until she finally realizes that he’s walking in circles around her. She can feel herself move with his ghost hands, twisting and turning her, manipulating her body into the movements. ‘Try now.’_

_She does and finds that it goes smoother than last time and she looks up to where she knows he is and gives him a bright smile._

_This is the first time he teaches her without her noticing._

_But it’s not the last.)_

* * *

He’s shown her the basic steps to each form and her body is exhausted. It isn’t until he drops his lightsaber and tells her to get water that she drops hers and makes her way over to guzzle water from her canteen, taking a seat on the bench. Her body is flushed with exertion and she’s rubbing her shoulders, trying to soothe her aching muscles. Without paying attention, he’s next to her in an instant, reaching out for her hands and pulling her gently to the ground in front of him. She sits with her back to him, in between his spread legs. She’s about to question him when she feels his hands on her shoulders, mimicking her previous movements but with experienced hands.

 

She bites her lip and leans forward, silently telling him where she aches and where she needs to be soothed. He follows without question, fingers digging into her sore muscles and she hisses when it hurts and then moans when it feels particularly good. She leans her head to the side, exposing her neck and one of his hands follows, gently kneading the muscles there and slipping down, fingers grazing her collarbone and brushing against the tops of her exposed breasts and she thinks he can feel her hammering heartbeat playing a concerto underneath his fingertips.

 

She sends him images him of her forgotten memory or dream or whatever it was and she can feel his hands still.

 

‘That didn’t actually happen.’ It’s not a question she asks, it’s more of a statement but she needs to know.

 

_‘We’ve shared dreams,_ ’ he tells her and the room around them is silent, the only sound, the buzzing of the lights above them. ‘ _That…that was a dream.’_

 

‘Mine or yours?’

 

_‘Mine.’_

 

‘Then how come I can’t remember?’ He’s silent and she probes deeper into his mind and he lets her, lets her root through the memories of them and she finds that dream and the multitude of others. She skims them all, some gentle in their reverence and others leaving her almost gasping for breath at the raw need and explicitness of them. ‘You suppressed them from me. Why? Why…why did you not want me to remember them?’

 

She remembers the mornings after the more graphic dreams though, the wetness that drenched her thighs and the need that overwhelmed her so much, she would shove her hand down her pants, rub at her clit and slip a finger inside of herself, trying to reach completion and biting her lip so that no sound, no words, no name would escape them. (But she knew the shame in her defeat. She knew the name that would echo in her mind when her orgasm would take her and she remembers wishing it were his fingers or his tongue or his cock inside her and that made her come harder.)

 

“I didn’t want you to hate more me than you already did.” _‘So I protected you from my desires the only way I knew how.’_

 

She should be angry that he took that away from her. She should be angry that he decided it for her but she _can’t_ be, not when he looks defeated, not when he looks like a needy child, in need of approval. Not when he tried protecting her from himself the only way he knew how until Rey was the deciding factor that would initiate any sort of intimacy, not what was leftover from some dream that left them both breathless. She can’t be angry with him, not when she remembers that he would shut her out of the bond when Snoke was torturing him, trying to ease her pain of his suffering.

 

(She thinks she loves him then, this man, this shadow, this personification of darkness. She thinks that maybe she’s loved him the first time he made his presence in her mind known and she thinks that maybe she’s loved him in the times that followed, when they argued, when they laughed, sometimes when they cried and other times when they would sit in silence, just the enjoying the mere comfort of having someone so close.)

 

She turns around, his hands falling to his side and she rises on her knees, hands planted on his thighs and rubbing soothing circles against the muscles that tense and ripple in response to her touch. “Don’t do that again. Don’t decide for me again. Don’t betray my trust like that again.” He turns his head and she squeezes his thighs. “Kylo, look at me. _Promise me_.”

 

He looks at her, leans forward and presses a kiss to her forehead and stays there for a moment, his lips lingering longer that they have in the past. “Sparring is next.”

 

He leaves her with a gust of wind and she settles back on her haunches, looking over her shoulder at him, silently asking him what he’s hiding from her.

 

He gently shuts the door to their bond.

* * *

She lets out a groan when her back meets the mats and she lies still, staring at the ceiling until his face enters her vision. She’s panting heavily, trying to bring her legs up to kick him, but he’s quicker and much stronger and blocks her, trapping her legs underneath his and his hands reach for her wrists, gripping them tightly and slamming them over her head. His hands are large and just one is more than enough to keep both her wrists in place, so he does just that and drops his free hand to her stomach, keeping her in place.

 

She’s letting out huffs of breath and he’s breathing heavily in her face and his breath puffs over her, his sweat mingling with hers. She tries lifting her hips in an effort to push him off but he presses down on her harder and when she feels the swell of his erection against her thigh, she stops, looking at him with wide eyes.

 

Oh, _oh_. This is what true déjà vu feels like.

 

He’s looking at her with wild eyes and he makes to get up, but she wraps her legs around his waist quicker than he’s able to move and he blinks.

 

“Don’t…don’t deny me.” Her voice is breathless and she flushes even more when she sends him suggestive images of her laid sprawled underneath him.

 

He groans, burying his face into her neck, lips pressing soft kisses to her pulse point and the hand that was on her stomach reaches up to where her wrists are trapped and he grabs each hand in his, interlacing their fingers and keeping her arms upright on the mats.

 

He’s pressed against her in every single place, enveloping her in his warmth and she can feel his heart beat thunderously where his chest rests against hers and she lifts her hips, desperate for something.

 

His lips leave her pulse that she knows is marked red and he’s trailing along her collarbone, nibbling at her earlobes and he only hesitates for a moment, before she breathes out, “Kylo,” to press his lips to hers and she feels like she’s in heaven, the way his lips move against hers, the way he devours her like he’s trying to reach into her soul and she wants to tell him that he’s already there but he kisses her like he doesn’t believe her, so she kisses him back just as fiercely, tongue dueling his. She lets out a whimper when she feels hands skim down her collarbone, down her torso until they reach the hem of her shirt and then it’s skin on skin and expert fingers are slipping through her breast binds, rubbing and pinching her nipples, hardening them into pebbles and she rips her mouth away from his, gasping in breaths and little whimpers as she clenches her thighs around his waist, letting them fall to the sides, bent at the knees and she stretches but doesn’t get far, Kylo’s hands still holding hers in place and…she jolts, eyes snapping open to look up at his hands and then down at her chest where she can still feel fingers that she knows can’t be Kylo’s but knows intrinsically _are_ his. “How…?”

 

“The Force.” Kylo huffs into her ear.

 

“I…highly doubt, _oh_ , that’s what the Force is for _-oh_.”

 

She can feel him grin against her neck. “I can stop, if you want me to. Say the word and I’ll stop.”

 

“I’ll break your fingers if you do.” She tells him truthfully and she couldn’t care less about the Stormtroopers that are likely outside. Couldn’t care less about Snoke or the First Order or even the Resistance, all she cares about is Kylo and the way their bodies are responding to each other.

 

She hisses when one of his hands leaves her breast but holds her breath when it skims down her stomach to the top of her leggings. He slips a phantom hand inside easily, cupping her wet sex and moaning into the hollow of her throat. His caresses on her clit are feather light and she lets out a frustrated sigh, lifting her hips, trying to get him to sink his fingers in deeper. “ _Kylo_.”

 

‘What do you need?’

 

_‘You,’_ she answers instantly, _‘you.’_

 

One of his fingers slips inside of her and she lets out a high-pitched moan, her head turning to the side, eyes catching their reflection in the mirror. She blinks and watches herself gasp as he moves the finger in and out; the only sounds in the room are their panting breaths, her breathy moans and whimpers and his grunts and groans and sometimes their whispered names.

 

His finger grazes a spot inside of her than sends her back arching, a strangled gasp falling from her lips and he adds a second finger not even a second later and she feels like she’s going to break out into sobs but she can’t seem to take her eyes off their figures sprawled on the mats in the training room.

 

He moves his head to the other side of her neck and his eyes catch hers in the mirror and a slow smile that is dripping with sensuality cross his face, his scar stretching with the movement. “Do you like this?” He asks her. “Do you enjoy watching yourself react to my fingers?”

 

“Not your actual fingers.” She reminds him and she almost rails against him when his use of the Force on her stops and she’s left with a need that wasn’t fulfilled. His face is twisted into a bemused snarl that makes her breath stall in her throat. He releases her hands and before she can shake them out, one hand is under her shirt, teasing her breasts and the other is back inside her leggings, slipping into her with ease.

 

She lets out a keen, the feel of his fingers instead of phantom ones, taking her to a level she didn’t know existed. “ _Kylo_!” She cries out when his fingers press against that spot he found before. When his thumb presses against her nub, she arches her back, a shriek building in her throat and her body rising higher and higher, building to a crest that she knows will leave her shattered.

 

_(“Girl to girl.” Jessika says, bumping her in the shoulder. “Out of Poe, Finn and Snap, who would you fuck?”_

_Rey chokes on her drink, cheeks flushing in the heat of the Coruscant Cantina. “Jessika!”_

_“It’s an honest question!”_

_Who would she want to fuck? Finn who is her best friend and in love with Poe and doesn’t know it quite yet? Poe who is in love with Finn and knows it but won’t do a damn thing about it? Snap who watches Jessika with interest that is built upon years of trust and friendship? None, she thinks. She wouldn’t want any of them. No, instead, she thinks of a tall man with black hair and brown eyes and broken constellations on his face from a scar she personally gave him, I want none but him._

_Jessika senses her silence and grins mischievously. “Or…should I add an older man with a metal arm? I hear that can be pretty hot.” Rey thinks she almost vomits at the thought of Master Luke. Jessika sees her face and bursts out laughing. “I’m going to get the answer out of you, one day. You’re all anyone can talk about, you know. Everyone wants a piece of you.”_

_The smile slides off her face. Right. Of course, everyone wants a piece of her because she is a supposed Jedi, training under the supposed Last Jedi and she’s an anomaly to all._

_Except Kylo Ren._

_Everything, she finds, comes back to Kylo Ren._

_And maybe it’s because of the drinks that have been flowing and maybe because it’s just Jessika with her while the guys have gone to get more drinks or maybe it’s the rage that seeps through her veins at the thought of being used over and over and over again. “Kylo Ren.” She tells the other woman. “If given the chance, I’d fuck Kylo Ren.”_

_There is a moment of silence before Jessika laughs harder than before, drink spilling to the floor, slapping the table with her hand. “That’s a good one, Rey! I always knew you were funny. Why are you not drinking? Where are the guys? We need more drinks! I can’t wait to tell the guys what you said. Kylo Ren!”_

_Rey’s heart seizes in her chest at her own stupidity. If Jessika tells the guys she knows that Finn will look and feel betrayed and she knows that Snap will tell the technicians who will tell everyone and Poe will tell the General who will tell her twin brother and her Master will look at her and he’ll_ know _about the connection and he’ll force her to try and break it because she knows it’s stupid, she knows speaking with the enemy is forbidden and she’s putting everything, not to mention_ everyone, _at stake but what about what_ she _wants? Doesn’t that matter? She thinks it should and every inch of her body is telling her that she wants, needs and craves Kylo Ren._

_She reaches forward and grabs Jessika’s hands. “You will not tell the guys I want Kylo Ren.”_

_“Rey…what the hell are you-”_

_“You. Will. Not. Tell. The. Guys. I. Want. Kylo. Ren.”_

_Jessika blinks. “I will not tell the guys you want Kylo Ren.”_

_When the guys come back, they come back with more drinks and Rey drinks and drinks and drinks and Jessika says nothing about their previous conversation._

_Rey feels only a slight bit guilty.)_

 

He twists his wrist and another shriek is torn from her throat, her hips are thrusting in tandem with his fingers and she can see them, see their figures in the mirror as he moves his fingers in and out of her and she can see the way her hips move to meet his almost desperately. He meets her eyes through the reflection and he curses hotly in her ear. “Rey, you feel so incredible.”

 

“Kylo. Kylo. Oh, _oh…Kylo_.”

 

“Will you beg for me?” He pants in her ear, fingers thrusting faster and she can feel his straining erection against her thigh and she tries to rub against him but he puts a hand on her knee and pulls it away from his body, stretching her and his fingers slip in deeper and she cries out in shock, eyes squeezing tightly against the ball forming and burning in the pit of her stomach.

 

She’s there, she’s _almost there_ and if he wants her to beg, she’ll plead but as soon as she opens her mouth, his fingers leave her in a squelch and she sobs in bereavement, looking up at him accusingly and his eyes are wide as he fixes her pants and wipes his hands over the legs of his. “Someone is coming.” He tells her.

 

And she’s up faster than she can imagine, fixing what he couldn’t and he’s pulling on his robes and cloak, shifting them so they cover his erection. He’s about to pull on his helmet when she stops him, eyes drifting to the door and she crosses the room until she’s in front of him, hands on his cheeks, thumb caressing the scar she left him and pulls his head down to hers, meeting his lips in a kiss that is gentle and she feels him get lost in it, feels his arms around her waist, lifting her off the ground and she thinks she could spend eternity here, in his embrace and not get sick of it. He sets her down and places his forehead against hers. “Don’t...” She trails off, _don’t what, Rey?_ She thinks, _don’t leave me? Don’t forget about me_? _Don’t turn your back on me?_ She feels ridiculous standing in front of him, faces pressed together so they’re breathing the same air and she’s still so _wet_ and desperate to feel the pleasure that was denied her (him, them) but at the same time, all she wants is for him to come back. To not leave. To stay in her embrace so they’re one with each other and the Force that has thrice damned them all.

 

He sighs and leaves her embrace to put on his helmet. The doors open and the ginger-haired General stops short just inside. He cocks his head to the side and lifts an eyebrow, scanning the room with a trained eye. “Am I interrupting something?” He’d almost sound apologetic if Rey didn’t know that he’s just full of bantha shit.

 

“Would you care if you were?” Rey snaps.

 

His eyebrows meet his hairline. “No.” He answers truthfully. He turns his attention to Kylo. “Lord Ren.” He greets and he almost sounds bored. “We need to discuss the timeline of…” He trails off, the corner of his eyes drifting to Rey for a brief moment and if Rey hadn’t been paying attention, she wouldn’t have noticed, but she was paying attention and she did notice. “Certain events.”

 

Kylo gives a nod and turns to follow the General out the door.

 

“Kylo.” Rey calls out, because she doesn’t like seeing him walk away with the General, and mostly she wants to rub it in the General’s face that if it ever came between them, Kylo would pick _her,_ listen to _her_ , be with _her_ and she sees him pause, sees both him and the General tense. “You promised to tell me about my family.”

 

The General looks at Kylo and with a nod, he leaves, disappearing around the corner. Kylo doesn’t turn around but she hears his mechanical voice echo throughout the training room. “Ben… _Ben_ Solo…I was named after your grandfather, Obi-Wan, Old Ben Kenobi.” There is a pause and Rey thinks her heart stops. “Soon, Rey. Soon, you’ll know everything.”

 

And then he leaves.

* * *

_(“Who is Ben?”_

_Master Luke looks shocked at question. “Which one?” He finally answers with resignation._

_Rey frowns. “There’s more than one?”_

_Master Luke nods and around a fire he tells her of a man named Obi-Wan, sometimes referred to as Old Ben, Kenobi and his connection to the Skywalker family. He tells her of everything that happened between him and Anakin Skywalker and he tells her of the woe that was (is) his family and finally he tells her of Ben Solo (and oh, everything becomes so clear to her, how Kylo Ren is Ben Solo), who was born to a smuggler and a once-was Princess-turned General, who once shone so brightly and had the potential to be the greatest Jedi but was seduced by the Dark and fell into a path where days and nights are plagued in darkness and terror and who forsook his name and instead welcomed the one of Kylo Ren._

_He doesn’t tell her about the connection between both names and he doesn’t tell her about her family even though she asks._

_“You…you and the General and even Han,” and oh, how her heart clenches and how her grief is renewed when she thinks of Han, “You want Ben Solo to come back.”_

_“There is light in him.”_

_Rey frowns, shaking her head, mind going back to the interrogation room, to the way he murdered his own father, to how he carelessly almost sliced Finn in half. She thinks about the countless of lives he’s tortured and murdered. She thinks about the way his screams echo in her head and more than that, she thinks about how he thinks it gives him power to be able to withstand such pain and she thinks about how she slams her mind shut when he taunts her with good and evil and the gray in between._

_“Ben Solo is dead.” She tells him, voice sure and unwavering. “And Kylo Ren lives.”_

_Master Luke doesn’t speak for the rest of the evening.)_

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WAS IT GOOD FOR YOU LIKE IT WAS GOOD FOR ME? LOL. THANK YOU SO MUCH AGAIN! IT MEANS SO MUCH TO ME! :)


	5. We can keep our secrets buried underneath (clinging to the wild things that raised us)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I LOVE YOU GUYS SO MUCH IT'S UNREAL. LIKE YOU DON'T EVEN KNOW. I LOVE YOU. I LOVE YOU. I LOVE YOU. THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THE SUPPORT. 
> 
> Here also be lemons. Because why the hell not, right?
> 
> Title is taken from the song 'Compass' by Zella Day.

Rey is escorted back to her room by Stormtroopers and she follows silently, body strumming with distant discomfort. Sweat has dried on her body and she aches to step into the ‘fresher in her room and wash away the sweat and grime coating her. She watches as they come to a stop in front of her door and with a few presses of the buttons, she’s inside, letting the door slide shut and enveloping her in stifling silence.

 

And it is silent, she finds. Not even her mind is buzzing, the connection on Kylo’s end, lifeless.

 

She shakes her head and makes her way to the ‘fresher, shedding her clothes along the way. It takes her a while to get the dials working properly and she lets the water run as she turns around and catches sight of herself in the mirror. The last dying vestiges of a flush are evident on her cheeks and body and she leans in closer, fingers tracing over the marks on her neck that Kylo left. She feels her body grow hot all over again and she can feel her arousal spike when the memory of his hands, both through the Force and real ones, caressing her and fingering her until she was so close to exploding into a million little pieces, envelop her mind again.

 

She turns back around, thrumming her fingers through the water and stepping into it, letting the glass door slide shut. It’s clear glass that automatically steams with the hot water and she keeps it hot until her body burns like it used to under the Jakku sun.

 

She rinses her hair and runs her soap filled hands over her body, hands lingering on her breasts, weighing them in her hands and rolling her nipples between her thumbs and forefingers, biting her lip to keep a whimper from spilling forth when she can feel her body responding. She washes the soap off, letting the water spill over her aching body and she slips a hand between her legs, trying to replicate the same movements Kylo made earlier because her body is still strumming with want and need and _Maker_ , she just needs _release_.

 

She is no stranger to sex, having lost her virginity a year prior to finding BB-8 and Finn and everything else that followed. ( _A year before Kylo Ren_ , the thought is unbidden in her head but it comes to her regardless.)

 

_(It’s the middle of the night and she knows this because the sun still hasn’t risen and the moon is still high in the sky. She’s woken up, damp between her thighs and to a dream she doesn’t remember. Biting her lip, she runs a hand down her torso, slipping underneath the oversized shirt she stole from Finn prior to coming back to Ahch-To after their mission on Coruscant. Her legs spread on their own accord as she slides her fingers into her soaked cunt, her free hand clutching the ground beneath her._

_She moves her hips in tandem with her fingers that pulse in and out of her, whimpers caught in her throat. It doesn’t take her long but she’s lost to the bliss that is her arousal and imagined pleasure, that she doesn’t realize the presence in her mind until it’s too late and she is already conjuring up the image of the boy-pirate who smiled at her in Jakku and ran his hands down her body and who laved her with the attention she always wanted for_ so long _. She vaguely recollects the way his mouth moved against her cunt and the way he wrought two orgasms from her until he came spilling on her stomach, his body heavy atop hers._

_She can feel herself tighten around her fingers and her free hand leaves the ground, slinks underneath her shirt and grabs one of her breasts, pulling at her nipple until she groans and turns around on her stomach, shoving both hands underneath her and undulating her hips, grinding the palm of one hand against her sensitive cunt and fingers of the other hand thrusting in and out. She’s panting, hot breath spanning over her pillow and she’s grunting until she bites her pillow to keep from screaming, trying to keep the face of the handsome boy-pirate, from what seems like another lifetime, in her mind._

_Except he doesn’t stay and when his face disappears, she almost screams in frustration, hands moving faster and faster until it practically hurts and then all of a sudden, another face appears, one with a scar cutting his face in half and dark brown eyes with a prominent nose and a mouth she thinks would be magnificent for kissing. The thought is enough to send her careening over the edge, Kylo Ren’s face the main source of an orgasm that makes her cry out before shoving her face in her pillow. After her body comes down, she shakily removes her hand from herself and turns softly onto her back, shifting her shirt back down over her thighs._

_‘Who was he?’ Kylo asks her when she’s able to catch her breath. And she both loves and hates that he’s as affected as she is, if his panting breath and thunderous heartbeat is any indication. He has murder lining the tone of his voice and it makes Rey’s stomach clench in anticipation [for_ what _, she doesn’t know.]_

_[She knows he watched her. Felt him come into her mind when she was too far into her own bliss. She should be angry but she can feel his arousal and she knows that she’s not any better than him, having caught him unaware with his heavy cock in his hands twice before.]_

‘I don’t know, _’ she answers truthfully. ‘_ He…he was a pirate, a smuggler and he came to Jakku looking for something.’

_He is silent until he clears his throat, but they can both hear the thought that runs through his (or is it hers? It could very well be both) mind; ‘Han Solo was a smuggler.’_

_She nods, remembering._ ‘Maybe in another life, it could have been you.’ _She can hear his breath catch and she knows that he’s in his bed, cock hard._ ‘If you hadn’t gone dark, if you weren’t a Force-user, or maybe you would still be but denied it like your mother. Maybe…maybe, you would have come to Jakku, either with or without your father, and maybe you would have saw me and maybe you would have liked to touch me and maybe I would have thought you handsome enough to let you follow me back to my AT-AT and maybe you would have stared at my wall of markings, feeling sympathy for the girl left behind and who marked the days until the family who left her would come back. Maybe…maybe, you would have kissed me so hard it would have robbed me of my breath and maybe I would have let you and maybe your hands could have made me believe in everything I’d _never_ have believed in and maybe I would have sobbed in pleasure as you took me _over and over_ , well into the night until we were both etched into each other’s skin. And maybe you would have taken me again when the Jakku sun would start to rise and maybe you would have let me be on top, riding you until our names, our histories, our existence, _didn’t even matter_. Maybe you would have been the first person to come back and _I would have let you._ ’ _She sucks in a deep breath, arousal spiking again and her hands find their way back under her shirt, across her thighs as she runs her fingers over her outer lips, teasing herself. ‘_ Maybe…things would be different between you and I _’. She inserts a finger into her still wet core and she lets out a gasp, staring up at her ceiling._ ‘Touch yourself.’

_It’s a demand, not a request, and one he follows eagerly. Cock in hand and pumping it. It’s big and heavy and Force, all Rey wants is to sink down on it and feel him inside of her. ‘Get on your knees, Rey.’_

_Now, she’s the one obeying, crouching on her knees, fingers still deep within her and she withdraws them, grabbing the hem of her shirt and almost ripping it off her body in her haste. The summer breeze is welcoming on her skin and she moans softly, gasping when she feels an imaginary presence behind her. She can hear him jerk off, as she puts her hands on the tops of her thighs, fingers squeezing her flesh as she feels his movements behind her, as one of her hands goes to her breasts, squeezing and pulling at her hardened nipples. ‘_ Kylo,’ _she breathes, ‘_ Kylo.’

_She hears him curse and feels him speed up. ‘Touch yourself, Rey.’ She listens to him, fingers going back to her core, entering her and she gasps, sensitive to her own touch but she mimics her movements from before, body gyrating, until she bends forward, placing one hand on the ground, fingers of her other hand pumping in and out of her, moans being torn wantonly from her throat. ‘Does my uncle still not know who you talk to? Who you let in your mind? Are you going behind your precious Master’s back, Rey? How does it feel?_ How does it feel _to let your_ enemy inside your head _, imagining him inside your body, letting him near you like_ this _, forsaking the Jedi Laws?’ It feels like she’s drunk, she thinks. It feels_ right _and that_ terrifies _her. ‘You’re intoxicating,’ he tells her in a gruff voice. ‘Do you have any idea how you’ve taken over my mind?’_

_She closes her eyes and whimpers, feeling another orgasm creep upon her. ‘Tell me, Kylo, tell me.’_

_He takes a deep breath and she can almost feel his breath on her neck, as he bends over her and_ Maker _,_ she wants him _, not this imagined vision of him, but_ him _. Every inch she can take of him, she_ wants _. She wants to dig her nails into his back until he bleeds and she wants to see his cock disappearing in and out of her and she wants to clutch at his hair as he laps at her cunt, she wants him desperately in every way they’ve never let themselves imagine. ‘I think about you going dark. About you in black robes and a red lightsaber in your hand. I think about your face and how your lips would twist when you would spar with me. Sometimes, I imagine you as one of my Knights and other times, you’re my Queen but all times you’re_ with me _,_ next to me _. I think about my tongue on you, in you, for hours until you_ beg _me to take you because you’re aching for my cock and I_ would _, but not until I bring you to ecstasy with my mouth and then my fingers and finally, only then, would I slip my cock inside of you and it’ll be like we’re_ meant to be _. Planets would shake, the galaxy would upend and the Force would be rocked to its very source because_ we’re inside of each other _. I would have you in every single way, Rey, until my name is the only word you know.’ He grunts, thrusting against her. Rey gasps and gasps and gasps until she can’t breathe and her orgasm is cresting inside of her. ‘We’d be so powerful, you and I, Rey. I would be Supreme Leader and you would be my Queen and_ everyone _will know our names.’ He comes then, with a grunt and a strangled shout and Rey almost collapses with the strength of her own orgasm, tears leaking from her eyes, emotions that she can’t name coursing through her body._

_Her body is heaving and she can feel his panting breath on her neck, lips hovering over her pulse point. There is silence in the air, the smell of her arousal hitting her senses. ‘You…you make me wish things were different,’ he admits to her._

 

‘They can be,’ _she tells him breathlessly, chest heaving up and down. She winces when she takes her fingers out of her, the squelching sound echoing in the silent hut._ ‘Come back, Kylo. Come back.’

_She can feel him shake his head. ‘No,’ he says and it’s a mournful type of word, ‘they really can’t be.’_

_And then he disappears and Rey is left alone in her hut, emotions she can’t name taking over until she lays down and soaks her pillow with tears of their damnation.)_

 

She hisses when the water becomes too hot and she fumbles with the dials, the steam overpowering her, suffocating her, as she wraps a towel around her body and using another to dry her hair. Her feet making wet noises as she makes her way into the room and opens a drawer, taking out what she needs and slipping on clean underwear and standard black clothing. She wrinkles her nose at all the black and gray and monochrome around her. _Everything is so bleak here_ , she thinks. _Everything feels like it’s dying._

 

Her stomach growls and she looks around, trying desperately to find something to eat but she can’t seem to find anything in her sparse room and she doesn’t want to ask the Stormtroopers she knows are stationed outside her room.

_(“Am I to be your prisoner then?”_

_“You’re my guest.”)_

 

So, she crawls into the bed, the black sheets stark against her skin and she sinks into them. The bond is still closed off on Kylo’s part but she sends him a little message, hoping that he’ll get it.

 

_'I’m hungry and alone.'_

 

And then, in a softer voice, she says, _come back_. 

* * *

 

The next time she wakes up, the lights are on and she vaguely remembers not turning them off and her stomach grumbles loudly when she’s assaulted with the smell of food. She sniffs, rises from her slumber and seeks out the source of the smell.

 

Kylo is there, food spread on the table in the corner of the room. He looks at home here, like _this,_ helmet off and in his training clothes, bare feet propped on the chair opposite him. Her breath catches when she watches him flick through a holobook in his hands. He looks domesticated here. He looks like he _belongs_ here, waiting for her to join him for supper.

 

And with a lump in her throat, she thinks that if things were different, if they forsook their names and their histories and who everyone told them they were supposed to be, they could have had this, with each other.

 

He pushes the chair opposite him out towards her, glancing from his holobook to meet her eyes and she flushes when he presses against her mind and she lets him in, lets him relive her memory of him and her (of them) and of what she did in the shower and everything she was thinking since he left her in the training room.

 

He clears his throat and she can see the tips of his ears turn red. “How long has it been since you’ve eaten?”

 

Honestly, probably since she left Ahch-To. Maybe some rations on the Falcon…she winces, taking a seat. “What happened to the Falcon?” ‘What happened to my ship?’

 

_‘Not yours,’_ he automatically replies in her head.

 

She frowns. “Because you’re worthy of captaining it, right?”

 

He sighs, picking up some fruit and biting into it, red juice sluicing down his chin. “I don’t want to fight with you.” He says and it’s in the way he says it, sort of defeated, sort of defensive, sort of guarded that makes her stomach clench.

 

“All we _do_ is fight.” She tells him.

 

“No, we don’t.” And he sends her images that has her blushing and clenching her thighs. She tenses and then leans into his hand that comes to the back of her neck, caressing the skin there and pulling her closer to him.

 

She can see the color of his eyes, such a brilliant shade of brown that she thinks she could lost in and the way his nose slopes and the way his lips part. Her fingers rise on their own accord, tracing the contours of his prominent cheekbones and tracing the constellations of moles and freckles on his face. She leans forward, tongue darting out and licking the already dried juice off his chin and he tightens his hand around her neck and his other flies to her waist. She trails down his chin to his neck and nibbles on his pulse point, marking him in the same way he marked her. He still smells like the forest and something spicy but she can also taste his sweat and it’s so intoxicating that it makes her dizzy. She pulls away, cheeks flushing and looks at him with hooded eyes. “There. Now we match.”

 

His eyes darken and he turns his face away, nodding towards the food. “You should eat.” And it’s like they’re magnets and they can’t help but gravitate towards each other as he turns back to her, pressing his forehead against hers. “Don’t ever go to bed hungry again. I…I will give you everything you want.”

 

_You,_ she thinks, _I want you._

* * *

 

Before he leaves and before he puts on his helmet, he sends her a glance but doesn’t actually look at her. “You should go to the library tomorrow before training. I’ll send Captain Phasma up.”

 

“Why?” She asks curiously.

 

He shrugs. “There are some interesting things you may find.”

 

Rey frowns. “Is this about my family? Kylo, what did Hux want?”

 

“I’ll see you tomorrow for training.”

 

And just like that, he leaves her, again.

 

She’s getting tired of being left behind all the time. 

* * *

 

She opens the door as soon as the first knock occurs, the next morning. When she opens it, she sees a Stormtrooper but she knows this person is different and not just from the rank on her uniform. The Stormtrooper in front of her holds themselves in high regard and with power suited to their rank. “Lord Ren said you wanted to go to the library.”

 

Rey blinks, a little bit surprised to hear a feminine voice. “More like Lord Ren dictated I should go.”

 

“He does a lot of the dictating around here.” Captain Phasma’s voice holds a tinge of dry humor and Rey has to hide a smirk.

 

“Not your Supreme Leader?”

 

Captain Phasma is silent before she answers, “Not quite so anymore.”

 

Rey frowns and follows the Captain down, down, down.

* * *

The library is a room with shelves of books upon books. She almost gasps stepping into the room but she stops herself, cognizant of the Captain behind her. She steps further into the room, fingering the books, in regular and holobook form and she bites her lip, wondering where to start.

 

_‘Feel the Force,_ ’ Kylo’s voice interrupts her thoughts. _‘Let the Force guide you to where you need to go, Rey. Trust in the Force.’_ _Trust in me_ , he wants to say but doesn’t but Rey doesn’t need him to say it, she can hear it clearly in his mind.

 

She listens to him, feeling the Force around her and she closes her eyes, letting the Force guide her until she’s in front of a shelf filled with books. She frowns when she sees an older book, higher up than most and hidden towards the end of the shelf. She grabs a step ladder and props it against the shelves, making her way up until her hand, on its own accord, grabs the book from its spot on the shelf and then without thinking, she’s on her way back down.

 

The title is faded and she has to squint to see it but it’s something about Darth Bane and Darth Zannah and there is a pull so dangerous in her bones that she feels limp when she sinks into the couch and opens it, devouring the words. She gets the gist of it. She understands that Darth Bane was Darth Zannah’s Master, that she aligned herself with the Light side before vengeance for her murdered homeland and family overtook her and Darth Bane saw her potential and lured her to the Dark Side. She understands that they fought together and were rumored to have a relationship with one another. She understands that Darth Zannah disappeared for some odd years and Darth Bane thought her weak. She understands that she had powers that didn’t just extend to the Force and that when she and Darth Bane fought for the last time for the position of Dark Lord, she killed him. She recognizes that she, Darth Zannah killed the man who likely saved her and molded her into a image of himself and who she likely had a romantic relationship with. It was possible that she killed the man she loved and in turn, because of her own weakening state from the fight, she died as well.

 

_And isn’t that how it always goes_? Rey wonders, the apprentice overtakes the Master and it’s a never-ending vicious cycle of owning and destroying. She flips the page and almost drops the book.

 

She blinks, trying to see through the sudden onslaught of tears and her throat feels tight. Her chest feels tight, like she’s struggling to breathe. She traces the faces in front of her, Darth Bane with a strong jaw like the one Rey looks at everyday. Darth Zannah with her hazel eyes and freckles and her hairstyle in the same unique three buns, that Rey loves wearing. Darth Bane has her ears. Darth Zannah has her nose and _the resemblance is uncanny_ , Rey thinks, gripping the armrests. She denies it, rails inside of her mind, howling, ‘what am I seeing? What does this mean? _Did you know_?! Did _Master Luke_ know?! Tell me! _Tell me everything_!’

 

The bond stays silent on his end but she can feel wave after wave of apologetic sorrow and there is a sense of foreboding when she flips to the end of the page and she spies a loose sheet of paper, written in a language she doesn’t remember ever knowing or studying but the words come easily to her.

 

_Order will be had when the blood of the defeated and victor, ancestor of a Jedi sacrificed will sacrifice her Light for the ancestor of a Dark Lord and it is before the bodies of the exalted that a Supreme Leader will fall and another, of the Light’s choosing shall take their place._

 

Rey blinks, reading the words over and over and over again until she can’t seem to understand them and until the riddle becomes _too_ much and she still doesn’t even know the _full_ story, doesn’t know _who_ they are or _who_ she is, all she knows is that these two Dark Lords have _her_ features.

 

She slams the book shut, stands up and storms out of the Library, Captain Phasma at her back, gently reprimanding her that she’s going the wrong way and Rey is too humiliated, too furious to say anything else and instead, she stops in the middle of a deserted hallway and lets the scream that is clawing its way up her throat unleash.

 

When she’s done screaming, her throat feels hoarse and the connection is strangely silent. Captain Phasma sighs, hands coming up to her mask and with a hiss, she takes it off and Rey’s lip trembles staring at the tall woman with highborn facial features, ice cool blue eyes and light, almost white, blonde hair. “Did you know?” Rey asks roughly. “Does _everyone_ know?”

 

“Only myself, General Hux and Lord Ren.”

 

“ _Your Supreme Leader_?” Rey spits out the words like they’re a curse.

 

Captain Phasma nods. “Knows as well, but not the prophecy.”

 

“What does it even _mean_?” Rey asks desperately, hands clutching at her stomach as she hunches forward, folding in on herself.

 

Captain Phasma looks almost regretful when she answers, “This is not my story to tell.”

 

Rey scoffs. “Of course not.” She sighs and presses a hand to her forehead, feeling her body thrum with anger and betrayal. “I want to go back to my room and you can tell _Lord Ren_ that until he starts telling me the _kriffing truth_ , I’m _not_ training.”

 

There is a ghost of a smile on Captain Phasma’s face. “There it is.” She whispers, a grin, almost worshipping, spreads across the blonde’s face. “The blood of the Dark ones _are_ in your veins. Can’t you hear them calling?”

 

_I can_ , Rey thinks as she follows Captain Phasma with heavy feet, _that’s the problem._

* * *

_(‘_ You’re planning something,’ _Rey says, lying on her side, hand curled into the empty space next to her but in her mind’s eyes, he’s there, next to her and her hand is pillowed on his chest, drawing unknown shapes over his heart._

_‘I am,’ he responds, grabbing her hand and pressing his lips to her fingertips._

_‘_ Why can’t I see what you’re planning? Why won’t you tell me?’

_‘You’ll find out soon enough,’ he replies after a few minutes of silence._

_It’s the way he says it, a little foreboding, a little bit of desperation seeping through, a little bit of hidden agony and she catches remnants of regret and guilt and in the center of it all, she sees herself, shrouded in darkness with blood on her hands. He slams her out of his mind so quickly she almost vomits._

_She shifts away from him, sitting up, feet tucked underneath her and her back to him._ ‘I’m going to hate you when this, _whatever_ this is, is all over, won’t I?’

_‘You should have always hated me, Rey. I should have always been your enemy as you should have been mine.’_

‘But you’re not my enemy and I’m not yours.’

_‘No, we’re not.’_

 

‘But that doesn’t change the fact that I’m going to hate you and you’re going to betray me.’

_‘No,’ he finally responds after the silence stretches on for so long that the sun starts to rise, ‘it doesn’t.’)_

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Have I told you guys lately how much I LOVE YOU GUYS? BECAUSE I DO. OKAY? This being said, because life is going to get a wee bit busy in the next week and some days, I'm not going to be able to update. I'm going to try but I highly doubt that I'll be able to until another week and half at the most. So, hopefully this will tie you over. Wifi is unfortunately going to be severely limited but hopefully I'll be writing! Which means finally finishing this one and starting on some other Reylo fics. BECAUSE YOU HAVE ALL TAKEN OVER MY LIFE. WTF GUYS?! Thank you for it though! lol. 
> 
> THANK YOU SO MUCH! And your patience in this is extremely appreciated! Mad love and respect to you all!


	6. Torn between being a good person and missing out on all the opportunities life could offer a man as magnificent as him (and I love him)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'M BAAAAAACK! Thank you guys so much for patiently waiting it's very much appreciated. Life has been hectic and it's starting to slow down a little bit. However, THANK YOU SO SO MUCH! YOU HAVE NO IDEA HOW MUCH YOU ALL MEAN TO ME. I LITERALLY COULD SOB FOREVER. I LOVE YOU GUYS SO MUCH. IT'S UNREAL. 
> 
> There is smut in this and violence because Snoke is an asshole. 
> 
> The title is taken from the spoken part of Lana Del Rey's song 'National Anthem' but it also stands alone in the form of 'I still love him'. 
> 
> I HOPE YOU GUYS ENJOY!!! THANK YOU A MILLION TIMES OVER!

It’s almost a surprise to her when he doesn’t come storming into her room, demanding that she train with him. Instead, he walks into her room as hesitantly as he can be without showing any hesitancy at all and she hates him for it. Hates how he can be so calm and assured while inside, she is raging.

 

And oh, how the tables have turned, she thinks.

 

She’s sitting on her bed, hands fisting the sheets beneath her and she’s fuming in her anger, seething in his and Master Luke’s betrayal.

 

She looks up at him when he enters, his hands reaching for his helmet to take it off and bare himself to her as he has done a hundred thousand times before but Rey is selfish in her anger so she holds a hand up, halting him in his place and summoning the Force, slamming him against the wall so that his helmet smacks against it, reminiscent of that first night. He does not fall to the floor and she wills herself to stay seated on the bed. “You _knew_.” She accuses him. Of course he knew (both he and Master Luke _always_ knew), he probably knew the moment he laid eyes on her. She tries to decipher when he found out her origins but his mind is sealed tight, a shadow of pain lingering in his mind and her eyes widen, heart beating faster and she drops her hand, letting him breathe a little easier. She studies him critically, seeing how he favours his left side and she lets out a strangled sigh. “Do you enjoy being his puppet?”

 

“You know I don’t.” His voice is mechanical when he answers her and it’s almost better that way, this way she can differentiate between _this_ Kylo Ren and _her_ Kylo Ren.

 

“Then why don’t you just kill him?” It comes out of her mouth faster than she can blink, quicker than it has any right to and has she been _here_ , around _him_ , for so long that her first thought is to _kill_? And then she thinks that when all things end, it was always going to come down to _this_ , her death, Kylo’s death, Snoke’s death, everyone else between them is collateral and if she were to choose she would kill Snoke a thousand times over to free Kylo.

 

“I can try but I won’t succeed.” ‘ _The Prophecy_ ,’ is whispered between their minds and Rey’s anger is back tenfold.

 

“My parents were Darksiders.”

 

“Your parents,” Kylo corrects, “Were two of the most powerful people to grace this Force-forsaken galaxy.”

 

“They were _Dark_.” She repeats, as if it means anything, as if it takes back the hitch of her breath when she saw the familiar angles of her face mirrored in Darth Zannah and Darth Bane. Her voice rises higher and she’s flying off the bed, standing in front of him, hands clenched into fists and breathing heavily. ‘I am not Dark, I am not Dark, I not my parents.’

 

“ _I_ am Dark.” Kylo reminds her.

 

Rey doesn’t say anything, instead, she closes her eyes and lets images of his touches and his laughs and their secrets confessed in lonely nights wash over him. She lets images of them, together, eyes shut in ecstasy yet so far away from each other, make a home in his veins. He is not Dark and yet he is not Light. She has seen his anger, she knows his rage and fury and she knows intimately whom he has tortured and killed, how he tortured and killed them and why he tortured and killed them. “You are not Dark.” She voices aloud.

 

“I am not Light.” He counters, reading her mind and something is happening here, something that has her heart clenching and her stomach dropping and she thinks that their time like this, him and her, is running out and she’s desperate to hold onto to whatever he can give her and she hates herself just a little bit that she can’t stop the way she feels and she hates herself a little bit that she knows how _he_ feels and she thinks they hate each other a little bit more because they’re so intertwined with each other now that time and planets apart feels like a physical wound knitting itself back together without bacta.

 

(It _hurts_ and everything between them _burns_.)

 

The name _Ben Solo_ flits across her mind and she’s not sure if it’s her or him or maybe even the both of them. “Ben Solo is dead.” She says quietly, hands itching at her side to reach for him, to hold him close to her until she can’t breathe but she doesn’t. ‘I don’t want Ben Solo, I never _wanted_ Ben Solo. I just want _you_.’

 

_(The General is looking at her through the holo and she looks haunted in her grief that hasn’t left her. “I have lost many people in my life, Rey.” The older woman starts. She lets out a sigh that is both parts defeated and painful. “And sometimes, I look around me and wonder if it was worth it. If maybe, I should have run away with Han when I had the chance and raised Ben away from politics and away from the stories of Jedi and Sith.” There are tears clinging to her eyes that she doesn’t let fall. “I have made my mistakes as a wife, a General and a mother and I own them, Rey. I own them.”_

_Rey gulps, hands fisting in her robes. “What do you need from me, General?”_

_“I need you to bring Ben back home. I can feel it, you know?_ Ben _. He’s still there.”_

_She told Master Luke once that Ben Solo was dead and Kylo Ren lives in his place but looking at the General with hope shining through her tear-stained eyes, she finds she can’t tell the truth when the lie is all she clings to. “I’ll do my best, General.”_

_“He won’t hurt you.” The General tells her quietly before she leaves. “My son. Ben. He won’t hurt you. He couldn’t before, he can’t now.”_

No, _she thinks,_ he won’t hurt me, instead, he’ll kill me _.)_

“Ben Solo is dead.” He agrees. “And Kylo Ren lives.”

 

Before Rey can say anything else, he hisses moving his head to the side before nodding slowly and when he looks back at her, she can tell that he does so with regret. “The Supreme Leader wants to see you. Alone.”

 

Rey doesn’t even nod, succumbing to her fate.

* * *

The walk to the room is long and she drags her feet, eyes searching her surroundings. She wonders if she could escape, starts making routes inside of her head, trying desperately to find a way out of here and yet…she glances at the figure in front of her, leading her to uncertainty, she doesn’t think she could leave, even given the chance.

 

_(‘I never wanted to hurt you,’ he whispers to her when sleep is close to claiming her and she can hear the pain in his voice._

‘Kylo…?’

_‘In the interrogation room, on Starkiller, I never wanted to hurt you. I wanted to…’_

_‘_ Teach me,’ _she supplies, yawning, knowing and memorizing the conversations from the dozens of times he’s brought it up._ ‘I know.’

_‘It’s not even that base either, I felt something in you, a kindred lonely spirit, surrounded by people but never feeling comfortable in your own skin. Are you comfortable yet, Rey?’_

‘I’m comfortable when I’m with you,’ _is the sleepy thought that comes unbidden and Kylo’s breath hitches. ‘_ Kylo, what’s wrong?’

_‘I am being punished because I have yet to find you but these things take time and I am bidding my time.’_

‘For what?’ _And Maker, is that desperation clawing at the back of her throat as she comes fully awake, terror lining her veins with his masked pain. And oh, oh, how she would give up her saber, her teachings, her location if just to ease his torture._

_He lets out a groan and his head rolls to the side, ‘for you to come to me.’_

_It’s been said between them a hundred and one times before and it’s on the tip of her tongue to tell him that she will never come to him, but that’s not entirely true anymore because it’s been months upon months that he’s been inside of her head and she’s been inside of his and it’s been months upon months that she’s sought pleasure from his imagined presence and she thinks she knows him as well as she can possibly know herself and maybe even more and that terrifies Rey more than any upcoming battle._ ‘When I come to you, I’m going to save you. I’m going…I need to save you.’

_‘You’ll free me,’ he corrects, ‘it’s written and Rey, I never wanted to hurt you and you will always want to save me and here we are, doomed.’_

_He closes his eyes, body succumbing to the pain, not waking even to her screams for him to_ come back _.)_

 

She bumps into his back and she swallows heavily, resting her head briefly against his cloaked back. She doesn’t want to go in, her body is just starting to recuperate and the only thing she wants to do is grab Kylo and _leave_. All she wants to do is run away to an uninhabited planet where it could just be them, damn the Light, damn the Dark and damn the Force that damned them both.

 

(She thinks she could love him, this man who is supposed to be her enemy and is anything but.)

 

“We each have our parts to play, Rey.” He says softly, interrupting her thoughts.

 

She nods severely and makes her way into the chamber, only to be held back by his hand against hers. “Don’t let him know about the bond. Because the moment he finds it, he’ll kill you.” ‘ _And then he’ll kill me_ ,’ is unsaid but heard.

 

Rey nods stiffly and shakes her arm out of his grasp, stepping inside and letting the door shut behind her.

 

She steps further into the room, coming to stand in front of Snoke and all at once, she crumbles, pain radiating her body as he combs her mind at a rapid pace and she lets out a shriek, hands clamping over her ears, slamming her walls around her bond so quickly it makes her head spin and her body tilt until she’s lying on her side, her breath leaving her in a _whoosh_. He leaves her mind as quickly as he enters it, leaving her gasping for air on the ground beneath her.

 

There is a smirk that graces his gnarled and old face. “You know who you are then, you know the Darkness that spreads in your veins is innate and this loyalty you have to the Light is for naught. Tell me, Rey, daughter of Darth Bane and Darth Zannah, how does it feel to be of the essence that you abhor?”

 

Rey gets to her feet, wobbling until she stands, hands fisted at her side and stays silent. There are a dozen things she could say to him, a dozen things that she wants to say to him but she bites her lips until she tastes the blood that he so desires.

 

“I can sense it, taste it, the strength of the Force that flows in your body and blood. You should not be ashamed, child.”

 

_(She huffs, exerting herself as she attempts to lift a boulder with the Force. She’s tired and her body aches, the remnants of Kylo’s torture last night taking a toll on her. She remembers the way he beat at his bruised skin, when he awoke from his consciousness and self-loathing laced and poisoned his veins and she remembers screaming at him, begging him to stop, kneeling in her hut, kneeling before the image of him that was conjured in her mind, trying to calm him and trying to make him do something other than hurt himself. And it’s not even about him hurting himself that hurts her, it’s the hurt she feels so acutely at his pain because he’s in pain. It’s the same clench, the same panic she feels when he gets hurt training with his Knights. It’s something that comes almost as naturally as breathing now and it scares her that she’s come to care for him with such fierceness when just half a year ago, she was ready to kill him._

_She can feel Master Luke at her back, telling her quietly and patiently to_ concentrate _and to_ feel the Force, Rey _. She wills herself through the Force to lift the boulder and every inch of her body is screaming in protest, her mind feels like it’s crumbling in on itself and it feels like her body is twisting, muscles concaving and then everything inside of her calms, as if she has achieved serenity and she knows in an instant that it’s Kylo’s doing. She can feel him strain himself and she hurries across their bond, projecting herself to him, ‘_ don’t!’ _She yells, trying to get him to stop, ‘_ your body needs to heal! Kylo, I can do it! Kylo, _stop_!’

_And he lets out a strangled sob that sears her heart and yanks her stomach to the tips of her toes; the bond flickers in her mind and she lets out a feral scream and she thinks for one horrifying moment, from the look in Master Luke’s wide eyes that she screams Kylo’s name._

_[She’ll never know if she did because Master Luke hides expression quickly.]_

_She drops the boulders, gasping for breath she doesn’t seem to have and rummaging through her mind, clawing at their connection until she can feel him again, faintly but there and a relief so potent spreads through her veins. ‘_ Don’t leave me _,’ she sobs into their connection. ‘_ Don’t leave me alone.’

_‘I won’t. I won’t. I won’t.’_

_Master Luke is kneeling in front of her and she’s looking at him through tear-stained eyes and she’s ashamed that she couldn’t concentrate on her task and instead went to the aid of the man who many believe to still be her enemy. “Master…” Rey croaks, shame cloaking her voice._

_“Do not be ashamed, my child.” Master Luke tells her, hand on her shoulder. “We all succumb to emotions we never knew we had.”_

_And Rey sobs harder because she feels like she’s torn in two._

_‘I won’t leave you.’_

_And then when she’s asleep later that night, a strangled whisper floats through her mind, ‘but you will leave me.’_

‘I won’t, _’ she remembers vaguely promising. ‘_ I won’t. I won’t. I won’t _.’)_

 

“Do not.” Rey snarls at Snoke. “Call me that.”

 

“Ah, there it is. The Darkness.” It’s eerily similar to how Captain Phasma said it to her and Rey feels disgusted, trying to squash the Darkness in her veins. Snoke laughs cruelly. “You can’t will the Darkness out of you, hasn’t my Apprentice taught you that?” She knows what’s going to happen before it actually happens and she reinforces her defences, awaiting the next wave of mind games and she isn’t surprised when it comes. She bites her lip until she thinks it gushes blood and she lets out an agonized scream when he roots and roots and roots until he finds the memory of them on the training room floor, Kylo’s hands in her leggings and her hips gyrating to meet his. She’s thrown to the floor again, like a used rag doll and she spares a thought to the doll she left behind in her AT-AT, suddenly mourning it before she hears Snoke roar. It shakes the chambers so hard, she feels it in her body. “Such _baseness_.” He spits fury in his words. “Such _weakness_ my Apprentice abides by.” He points a finger at her. “ _You!_ You and your mother are one and the same! _Sorceresses!_ You think that _you_ can take _him_ from _me_?!” There is a sort of possessiveness that is in his voice when he speaks of Kylo that makes Rey rebel against his forced entry into her mind. “I made him who he is! And _you_ will be the ultimate sacrifice!”

 

He attacks her mind harder than before, sending her images of the people she loves, Finn, Poe, Jessika, Snap, the General, Master Luke all dying horrible deaths, cleaved in two by a man cloaked in black and wielding a red lightsaber and she sees him turning around to face her, she can see her sniveling face and hear her own begs and pleas for a mercy that she knows this version of Kylo Ren won’t give her.

 

(She knows Snoke’s Kylo Ren as intimately as she knows her Kylo Ren.)

 

She feels the scorching plasma as it pieces her heart and she sees herself die through Snoke’s eyes, manipulating the image of Kylo.

 

Rey lets out a strangled gasp as he lets go of her mind, sweat drenching her body.

 

“Kylo Ren is not yours to command. _He is mine._ And I will not hesitate to use him to get answers out of you!” And she hears a grunt from outside the door and she can feel his agony even without the bond. “ _Tell me everything_!” She knows what he wants. He wants the Resistance. He wants the General. He wants Master Luke. He wants power until he’s burning with it.

 

_It’s all anyone wants_ , she thinks. They don’t want her, they don’t even want Kylo, they just want what they can give them.

 

But Rey is done playing everyone else’s games. She is done being used as a pawn and she is done watching Kylo being used as a pawn.

 

Rey is ready when he enters her mind again, trying to find information that she won’t give him. When she feels him on the edge of her mind, she lets out a feral shriek that echoes and pushes him out the same way she did with Kylo all that time ago. She pushes and pushes and pushes, until the thought, _I’m going to kill you_ , is a violent echo in her mind and she screams and screams and screams pushing against his restraints on her mind until he’s propelled from her in a sharp haze, disappearing within the walls of the chamber with a distant hair-raising roar.

 

She collapses, crying out in pain, blinking against the images that stay burned beneath her eyes and she’s sobbing, curling into herself, hand clawing at her imagined fatal wound. She barely hears the door to the chamber open, barely hears the footsteps that rush to her, but she does feel the gloved hands on her arms and when she looks up, she sees the helmet of Kylo Ren and she remembers him cleaving everyone she loves in two and she remembers him killing her over and over with fury in his eyes and she clenches her fists, pounding him violently on his chest, fear gnawing at her.

 

“Rey! Rey!” He leaves her, only for a familiar hiss and suddenly he’s back in her vision, hands bare from gloves and face sheen with sweat, eyes wild with worry. _“Rey!”_

 

She struggles for deep breath and he cups her cheeks in his hands, thumbs tracing little circles on her cheekbones and he breathes deeply, “Look at me.” He commands softly and gently, “Rey, look at me. Follow me. Don’t… _Rey_!” He forces her head in place when she tries to shy away from him. “Don’t leave me. Look at me! Look at me! _Me_!”

 

And she does, hands unclenching above his rapidly beating heart and then clenching in his cloak, drawing him closer to her, desperate to feel him against her body. “Kylo.” She murmurs. “Kylo. _Kylo_.” Her Kylo. _Hers_.

 

Not Snoke’s. _Hers_.

 

Kylo Ren. Not Ben Solo. Not the man the General believes he still is and not the man Master Luke thinks he could still be. Kylo. Hers.

 

“You killed me. You killed me.”

 

“I won’t.” He promises. “I won’t. I won’t. I won’t.”

* * *

When he takes her out of the chamber, Captain Phasma and General Hux are there, staring at them. Captain Phasma’s face is unreadable as she has her helmet on but General Hux’s face reads intrigue, cocking his eyebrow in askance for something Rey is not privy to.

 

Kylo nods once and a smile, so small but stark in its relief, flits across the General’s face and it leaves Rey with a sickening feeling in the pit of her stomach.

* * *

He doesn’t take her to her room, instead he takes her to another room, much larger than the one she inhabits now and she knows, the instant she steps through the door that it’s his room.

 

The bed is larger but with the same black sheets as hers. He has more seats and a larger metal table. There is a large area where she knows from her memories and connection with him is where he meditates and practices forms on his own. His room is larger than her entire hut and the stark contrast between the way they both have lived flickers through her mind.

 

He leads her into the ‘fresher and they don’t exchange any words as he turns the dials and tests the water. She undresses herself stiffly, whimpering when the pain becomes too much and then he turns around and helps her until she’s naked in front of him. He makes to leave her but she pulls him back, tugging at his shirt and pants and he nods just once, undressing himself in a similar manner that she undressed. He is meticulous in undressing, almost military in the way he ensures that everything is folded with the helmet atop his pile of clothes.

 

His cock lays flaccid between his thighs and she steps closer to him until her breasts are pressed to his chest, hardened nipples grazing his skin. Her hands trace his ridged scars that mar his body, mostly from battle but more than a few from Snoke and renewed hatred rise through her veins and all she wants to do is _kill_ him.

 

( _I’m going to kill you_.)

 

She drifts one hand lower until she’s grasping his cock in her hand and he lets out a deep breath as she pumps her hand once and then twice and _Force_ , she wants _more_. She wants all of him.

 

Just like that, his hand is on her wrist, cock hard between them and he’s shaking his head, jaw clenched tight. “Kylo.” She whispers, her breath a ghost across his neck. “Kylo.”

 

He presses a kiss to her temple, so soft, so sweet and so gentle that it belies everything everyone else _but_ her knows about him and leads her inside the glass doors, closing them and situating her in front of him, his hands running up and down her wet body. His cock is still hard against the small of her back and she presses against it and he pulls away from her. “No.” He tells her, his hands coming up to her breasts and cupping them, weighing them until he draws circles around her nipples and they’re pebbled in the heat of the water. His hands leave her breasts and drift down her torso, one hand rubbing soothing motions against her stomach and the other making its way to her wet cunt, inserting a finger inside of her.

 

She arches against him, letting out a cry, mind going blank, focusing on nothing but the feeling of his finger inside of her and his lips on her neck.

 

He slips in another finger, mimicking his previous movements in the training room and she can feel her arousal spike, she can feel it building in her stomach and she closes her eyes, hand clutching his arm strewn about her waist. His thumb finds her nub the moment his fingers graze against the spot inside of her that makes her see stars and she lets out a cry, turning her head and capturing his lips.

 

“I want to see you. I need to look at you. _Kylo_.”

 

He nods, sliding his fingers out of her and turning her around so that her back is against the cold tile. She hisses and then moans when Kylo’s fingers slip back in easily. The floor is slippery beneath them but that doesn’t stop her from grabbing onto his waist and hefting her right leg until she’s cradling the outside of his hip, spreading herself to him and his fingers slip in deeper and she’s keening as his cock brushes up against her clit.

 

She feels his other hand drift between their bodies to clutch at his cock, groaning into her skin when he grasps it and jerks himself off against her thighs and she chokes on a moan, slapping his hand away and grabbing his cock, running her hand up and down in the way she’s seen him do a hundred and one times before.

 

She’s tilting her head back so that it’s against the tile and he follows her, body bowed over hers, both of their hands between them and foreheads touching. She presses her lips to his, capturing them in a kiss that is violent and needy. Her breath hitches higher and higher and higher until she’s sobbing into his mouth, her orgasm shocking her body in its surprise.

 

He lets out a shout, thrusting himself into her hands once, twice, thrice and then coming into her hands.

 

Both of their bodies are trembling as he brings her back to their original positions, both of them under the spray as he washes her clean all over again.

 

Her mind, blissful from her orgasm, becomes her own again and all she can see are the images that Snoke forced her to see, all she can see is Kylo piercing her with his lightsaber and all she can think is that they may have always been destined to end up with this way. Her death. His death. Their deaths.

 

Her first sob catches her by surprise. Her second sob, not so much. By the third sob, she’s sobbing hard enough for her chest to ache. She feels Kylo press himself against her back, holding her under the hot water as she sobs and sobs and sobs. “Don’t leave me.” She cries. “Don’t leave me.”

 

“I won’t.” He promises.

 

( _I won’t. I won’t. I won’t.)_  

* * *

 

On the other side of the galaxy, a Master awakens with a gasp, eyes adjusting to the darkness of the night, stretching out to feel for his lost Padawan and when the Force bends to his will, he locates them. Het gets out of his cot in a hurry, thumbing a familiar number and his sister answers with tiredness that wasn’t there before.

 

“Leia,” Luke says, his voice calm and even, despite the rapid beating of his heart. “I’ve found them.”

 

And for the first time since Rey left and didn’t come back, for the first time since they thought her and Ben ( _Ben Solo is dead and Kylo Ren lives_ ) died, as evidenced in the blood and broken and beaten Falcon and First Order shuttle on Hoth, Leia’s eyes fill with hope.

 

And Luke doesn’t have the strength to crush it with the unbearable truth he’s always known.

 

_Your son is dead and my Padawan is lost._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SERIOUSLY. 
> 
> I LOVE YOU GUYS. Hope you all enjoyed!

**Author's Note:**

> Soooooo.....can you feeeeeeel the angst?! Lol. THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR READING! I can't wait to go on this journey with you guys! I would love love love to know what you guys think! MAD LOVE AND RESPECT!


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